


meet me in the aether

by SaintHeretical



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Attempted Suicide, Cancer, F/M, Immortality, Infertility, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Occupational Therapy, Profanity, Rey is Very Smart, Rey/Other Characters, Self-Harm, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Trigger Warnings Abound:, Violence, discussions of pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-10-19 13:47:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20658245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintHeretical/pseuds/SaintHeretical
Summary: Rey is barely a teen when she discovers her healing abilities.She's barely an adult when she discovers she's not alone.Written for the RFFA 2019 CollectionAmid Secrets and MonstersGothic Element:Immortality





	meet me in the aether

We are the fools of time and terror: Days

Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live,

Loathing our life, and dreading still to die. -MANFRED Act II Scene II-

_For most, life begins in a moment. _

_Some claim life begins at conception. Others believe it starts at birth. Songs talk about life beginning at graduation, or marriage, or at the birth of a first child._

_Rey can pinpoint the exact moment her life began or, more accurately, the moment she realised that her life would never be the same again._

_It was a hot July day, heavy and sticky with other people’s perspiration. The junkyard buzzed with activities, dumpster-divers, flies, the occasional mechanic picking through scrap to get a good deal. For Rey, summers meant competition for goods, which always made her antsy to get going and eager to scavenge in places she probably shouldn’t go._

_In hindsight, climbing a motorcycle stacked atop another motorcycle stacked atop a rustbucket 1982 Ford Ranger was a bad decision. The moment she stepped up to the second bike (which she swore was a Harley Davidson), the truck crumbled, sending her tumbling into a pile of rusty tools and old diapers. One tool, a splintered old thing once used to extract weeds, was positioned at just the right angle to impale her right through the chest, which it did with a very disturbing squelchy noise._

_She felt it. It was like being burned alive and breaking bones and vomiting all at once, plus a deflating sensation she attributed to...well, to dying. Everything went black, and then–_

_–and then, she survived. More than _survived_, she looked down and was able to wiggle herself off of the weed puller and walk away. She was in shock, yes, but even as she walked past a small crowd of shrieking bystanders, she could feel her guts start to knit themselves back together underneath her fingertips._

_Later, she tried other things: matches, needles, even a knife to the wrist when she felt bold enough, and after all of them she wiped away the blood and saw clean, unbroken skin underneath. She wasn’t brave enough to break her own bones, but she felt confident that it would all yield the same result._

_The immortality she would discover later._

**2019**

“‘–and the resulting refinery will ensure revenue for the next hundred years, promising prosperity for the region. Back to you, Donna.’

‘Thank you, Jim. In other news–’”

“So you’re saying my pictures are in a cloud?”

Rey swallows back a groan, and patiently scrolls through folders on the customer’s Chromebook. “They’re in the Cloud, yes, as long as you back them up there, but it appears that you didn’t. Because you forgot your password and reset it, your computer isn’t allowing you to access the documents saved on its local memory.”

The elderly man frowns. “But the man who sold it to me said my pictures would be in a cloud, and that I could get them from anywhere.”

“That is true, Sir, but you have to save them to the Cloud first.”

“But this computer saves them in a cloud.” The man crosses his arms. “Young lady, I don’t believe for a second that you know what you’re talking about.”

“Sir, with all due respect, I’m in my third year of biomedical engineering, and this is a Wal-Mart. I am by far the most qualified person here.”

Everyday is like this. Clock in, get berated, browse Imgur, lazily watch the evening news, clock out. Her mornings are occupied with school, currently a co-op where she calibrates dialysis machines, and her nights are spent shovelling ramen into her mouth and sleeping fitfully. She keeps to herself mostly, only venturing out of her apartment for class, study groups, and work. Sure, she’s lonely, but having close relationships seems daunting when she’s housing a secret such as hers, so she walls herself off from people, staying courteous but distant. 

The electronics department should be a break in her routine, but the constant mental gymnastics required to explain basic operating systems to those unwilling to learn is absolutely back breaking. She shoos the grouchy Chromebook owner in the direction of Customer Service, then slouches over her counter and takes a long gulp of water from her bottle. Squinting, she glares at the flashing wall of TVs in front of her.

“– RCD is what they’re calling it, ‘Regenerative Cell Disorder’, and at this point all we know is that it’s not contagious, and it’s very rare, the only known case being Democratic Senator Leia Organa’s son, Ben Solo.”

“So you’re saying that the public doesn’t have to worry about picking this up off of door handles or public bus stops, Brenda?”

“Well no, Brad, though from the sounds of it, it doesn’t seem like it would be a bad thing to catch. Now over to Marsha Vignoli at First Order Medical with the details.”

Rey’s heartbeat quickens, and she can feel her palms start to sweat. Her entire world focuses in on the screens in front of her, customers be damned, because she couldn’t have heard what she thought she heard, not really. It would be impossible for there to be someone else, another person living with the mysterious ability to heal themselves from any injury, but there it is on the screen in bold black text.

**REGENERATIVE CELL DISORDER**

She shakes her head, and the words remain. This may be the day she starts to find answers about herself, about who or what she actually is.

“Thank you, Brenda. It was back during the summer of 2015 that Ben Solo noticed something different about himself. While reading a book, he gave himself a papercut which then healed right before his eyes.”

The screen flashes from a well-dressed anchor to a dark haired man, seated casually in a squishy, floral patterned armchair. Rey leans forward, drinking him in. He looks normal, just like her, albeit a bit broader and clearer skinned than the average twenty-something year old.

“–so I just looked down at my hand, and the cut disappeared almost instantly. There was still some blood that had leaked out, but once I washed it off in the sink, my hand looked totally fine, no cut or scar or anything. It was like it had never happened.”

The camera cuts back to the anchor, and Rey flinches, craving another look at her compatriot.

“Fearing round the clock scientific observation, Solo kept his condition a secret for several years. It was only the news of rising cancer rates and the promise of an independent lifestyle at First Order Medical that prompted him to come forward.” 

“Uh, yeah, I don’t know, I guess I just felt like I have a bit of a responsibility, y’know?” The screen flashes back to the man. “There’s so many people out there dying of diseases we don’t know how to cure, kids, babies, and there may be something locked inside me that can help them.”

The camera cuts to another man. Rey recoils. If Ben is the picture of health and vitality, this other man is the complete opposite; bald, wrinkled, and sneering, with a jagged scar bisecting his face down the middle. The lower third of the screen informs her that the man is Doctor Archimedes Snoke, the Chief of Medicine at First Order Medical.

_“Do I believe that Solo is unique? At this point, yes, considering we have heard no other reports of individuals with these abilities, especially in this digital age. It’s a fascinating opportunity we have here at First Order to work with such an amazing individual, and I look forward to having a lasting partnership with him.”_

Something about the old man gives Rey the creeps, and the urge to go public with her own case of RCD shrinks back into her like a snail scooting back into his shell. If she could talk to Ben about it, see what his experience is like, then maybe she’ll go public. 

Maybe.

* * *

_Time passes._

_The burst of head hunters calling and emailing her after graduation is startling for someone like her, who up until recently used to collect bottles to trade in for ramen money. It’s even more startling once she completes interviews and is sent offer letters with salaries that make her head spin. They’re tempting, but she’s only got one goal in mind: First Order Medical. _

_She submits her resume, coyly saying she’s ‘willing to relocate’ when, truth be told, she’s half packed and her plane ticket is already purchased. Poe Dameron from Amputation and Prosthetics performs her Skype interview, and is the one who signs her offer letter less than a week later. He calls her ‘a great asset’. _

_She calls it an in._

_It’s a big facility, stretched over a 10 building campus where she loses herself for the first three months. Poe and his team are amazing; all cheerful and skilled and committed to helping those who’ve lost their limbs. She’s teamed up with an Occupational Therapist named Finn, and together they come up with an innovative prosthetic arm that uses both A.I. and tactile response to ‘learn’ fine motor skills. The work is so fulfilling, she almost forgets the reason why she was so set on First Order in the first place._

_Almost._

**2021**

“Jesus, it’s hot in here.”

Rey wipes her sweaty forehead with her lab coat sleeve , grimacing, as Finn does the same across the table. The AC has been down for the last two days, right in time for the legendary hottest week of the year, and as a result the skylights and copious windows that normally make the lab a pleasant place to work have turned it into a literal hot house. 

“I feel like a fucking jalapeno,” Finn grunts. “Can you crack open the door a bit, just to let some air in?”

“You sure?” Outside the lab is full of contaminants, and keeping the door open is usually a no go when they’re working with intricate prosthetics. 

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m calling it for lunch early, so we can pack up and let the place air out a bit while we’re eating.” He’s already packing up their work, deftly locking it in its designated cabinet and pocketing the key. “That good with you?”

She grins. “Of course. I’ll meet you in the break room? I’ve just got to grab some stuff.”

Nodding, Finn grabs his phone and heads down the hall. Rey walks over to the outside door and heaves her shoulder against it to push it open. It meets some resistance but eventually opens, apparently displacing the dark haired man who was previously lounging against it, who jumps up with a husky, “Oh shit!”

“Sorry!” She pokes her head out. “I was just trying to air out the place, I–”

He turns to look at her, a metallic black vape inches from his lips, and her heart stutters.

“It’s you! You’re Ben Solo!”

“Oh great.” Rolling his eyes, he pockets the vape and turns to face her, muscled arms crossing protectively over his broad chest. “A member of my fanclub, I take it?”

“Fanclub? No, I just remember seeing you on TV a while back,” she backtracks, then gestures to her lab coat. “I work here.”

“I see that.” 

“Was just trying to air out the lab. It’s hot, the AC isn’t working, and we were getting really sweaty in here.”

“That’s nice.”

“I’m not some sort of stalker or anything, I swear.” She’s starting to ramble now, but she can’t stop herself, not when he’s appraising her with a glint in his eye. “I mean, I’ve worked here for almost two years, and this is the first time I’ve seen you, so I would be a really crap stalker if I was one. Also I would have had no idea you were even out here, unless there’s cameras. Are there cameras?” Her voice trails off, and her eyes flick to the roof.

“Funny you should mention that.” He pats his pocket. “There are no cameras in this specific corner of the yard, which is why I’ve chosen this spot to indulge in some bad habits over the years. Though, I suppose you should know that already, being my stalker at all.”

“I’m not a stalker,” Rey mumbles. Her brain is starting to feel weird, the same way it felt when she first saw him on the news over two years ago. She feels needy, clingy, desperate to spill her guts to the only other person who may truly understand her, yet scared to bits that it will all go sideways. “Hey, can I show you something?”

“I-okay? Sure?” His eyebrows raise, but he steps forward, his curiosity winning out over his sense of self preservation. 

She digs into her pocket and pulls out a tiny screwdriver, normally used to open access panels in complex A.I. heavy prostheses. Gritting her teeth, she bares her arm and plunges the tool into her ulnar artery, which immediately wells with fresh blood.

Ben squeaks and jumps back. “Lady, what the hell are you doing? D’you need–”

His words catch in his throat when she uses her sleeve to wipe away the blood, revealing fresh, unmarred skin. “See, Ben? I’m like you, I can hea–”

Rushing forward, he pushes her against the door to the lab, pressing his hand to her mouth as his hips pin her in place. “What the fuck are you doing? Don’t even think about doing that again, not here.”

“Mffffggggggmmmhhhh!” She glares daggers at him until he relents, slightly, shifting his hand down so she can squeak out, “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” His brown eyes are wide, drenched in an emotion Rey instantly recognizes as pure terror. “Do you want to end up like me?”

“Like you? I am like you!”

Biting his lip, he looks up at the sky and scrunches his eyes closed. He lets out a small, pained whimper. “No, not like that. I mean, do you want to be stuck in this facility for the rest of your life, being poked and prodded like a guinea pig? With no freedom, no social life, being treated like a freak by an endless parade of emotionless doctors?”

Rey frowns. “But I thought you were here voluntarily? That’s what they said–”

“–on the news? And you believe everything they say on the news?” A chuckle bubbles up from his chest, vibrating against her where they’re still pressed together. “Don’t be naive. It started out that way, sure. They funded my father’s cancer treatments, donated heavily to my mother’s campaigns, set up an obscenely huge bank account in my name, all good things on paper. But then they chipped me, got dirt on my family, and now monitor me twenty-four seven so I can’t say no, not any more.”

He looks over his shoulder. “Have you ever wondered why an experimental research facility is surrounded by a 20 foot electrified fence and only accessible by guarded gate?”

She swallows. “I just assumed it was to keep out spies.”

“No, it’s not here to keep people out.” He leans closer, close enough for her to feel the puff of his breath against her ear. “It’s here to keep me in.”

“Then what should I do?” she whispers. “I’ve felt so alone all these years, and when I saw you, I just…” Her emotions are going haywire: horror, anxiety, even a longing sense of relief that someone else finally knows, and not just any somebody. He knows, finally.

“You’re not alone.” He backs off, giving her space to breathe while still caging her in with his arms. 

Contrarily, she steps forward. “Neither are you.”

A lingering beat passes, a tense stare down between the two of them that ends when Ben drops his arms and lets out a sigh. “I can’t believe you’re real, after all of this. They told me I was the only one, I thought I was the only one.”

“So did I.”

“I’m freaking out here, I can’t–don’tknow what to do about this.” His brow is wrinkled in thought, eyes darting back and forth. He scrubs at his face with his hands. “How long have you known?”

“Years.”

“Years,” he repeats. “Years, and they never found you. They’ve been looking, you know? For more of us?”

Her heart jumps at the word us. “I kind of assumed. I’ve kept a low profile. There may have been a few people who saw me back when I found out–”

“Some sort of accident, I presume?”

“Yeah, it was really dramatic. I impaled myself.”

He snorts. “Good Lord, girl, now that’s something even they haven’t done to me yet.”

“It’s Rey,” she blurts out. “My name is Rey.”

He smiles, crookedly. “Hi, Rey.”

“Hi.” Despite her stress, she gives him a shy smile back, then suddenly remembers herself. “I need to get going. My lab partner is waiting for me, and he’ll come looking if I don’t–yeah. Should we meet up later?”

Ben’s face falls from an amused grin to a small frown. “Meet up? For–?”

“I don’t know, to talk? About this?” She’s suddenly self conscious about her hands, and stuffs them into her pockets as her cheeks flush. “We’ve both been given this gift and I just–”

“Don’t call it that!” he snaps. “It’s not a gift, it’s a curse.”

“A curse?”

“I could see why you wouldthink that it’s a gift, but just imagine: You have your entire life in front of you, someone to love who loves you back, friends, family...and then one day you’re left all alone, abandoned by their deaths.”

“By their–?” 

Suddenly, it all clicks into place for her. What he’s saying, why he’s so frustrated, angry, marinated in the despair of a nihilist who’s accepted his fate. “You don’t mean...we’re immortal?”

The shock that must be on her face is reflected one his. “You didn’t know,” he responds flatly. 

“No, I didn’t know!” 

“You didn’t think that–?”

She wrings her hands. “I just thought we were like Wolverine, y’know, like we wouldn’t get hurt, and maybe age a bit slower than normal, I didn’t think that! Why would I think that, how is this even real?”

“You walked away after being speared through the chest and nowyou’re asking if it’s all real? Yes, it’s real. They ran a bunch of tests on me, with different chemicals, gasses, and it turns out that our cells don’t oxidize, and our organs show no signs of aging. At all.”

“But how_?”_ Her engineer’s mind is running wild with questions and possibilities. “What is our baseline? The end of puberty? I mean, it makes sense when you think about it–I feel pretty much the same way I felt when I was sixteen, but that doesn’t mean...how can they even know, without a longitudinal study of at least 20 years? How–”

Ben grabs her shoulders. “Hey, hey_._ I know about as much as you do. Maybe they’re wrong, but what’s more likely, you think? That we’ll just die one day, with our bodies in pristine condition?”

_Our bodies._

Her gut gives a sick lurch, and she stumbles back. “I gotta go,” she mumbles. “Finn’s looking for me.”

“Remember what I said!” Ben insists. “Lie low, and don’t tell anyone about your condition.”

“But we need to talk,” she pleads. 

“We will, someday.” He smiles, eyes dark and haunted. “Remember, we’ve got all the time in the world.”

* * *

_Time passes._

_She sometimes sees Ben, but they’re always fleeting glances, both parties averting their eyes to avoid attracting attention. He seems well every time, but that’s one of the lies of their condition, the glowing skin and bright eyes hiding sleepless nights and stress beyond imagination._

_Work keeps her occupied. She lives for the smiles she sees while calibrating new prosthetics. Some days, she stays past her shift to observe Finn running sessions with the amputees, teaching them how to tie their shoes and brush their teeth. It’s amazing, the patience and kindness he has when working them through stressful situations._

_He’s a kind man, Finn. So when he asks her out one evening, she says yes._

_Dating Finn is sweet and lovely, and so amazingly normal. He takes her to movies and sends overflowing bouquets of orange and blue delia pavorum blossoms to her desk at least once a month. She bakes him cakes as he sings her showtunes, and it doesn’t take long for her to realize that she’s fallen completely and hopelessly in love._

_So one morning she sits him down on the couch in their shared two bedroom apartment downtown, holds her hand in his lap, and runs a paring knife across her skin. He’s shocked when the blood gushes out, but that’s nothing compared to the face he makes when she wipes it away. She sits across from him, knife in one hand, bloody napkin in the other, waiting to see if her trust has been given to the right person._

_It has, of course. If anything, his love grows even fiercer, even as she feels their relationship already begin to tick away._

**2023**

She’s in sweats and one of Finn’s old ratty t-shirts when Poe rushes into their place unannounced. “I can trust you, right?” he blurts out to Rey, who is still holding the door open, confused.

“Uh, I guess, yeah,” she mumbles, closing it softly. “Finn’s just in the shower if you–”

“Yeah, yeah, we should wait for him.” Poe dumps himself onto their couch and starts to frantically run his fingers through his greying curls. “You see, they’ll have my head if they find out I know about this,” he starts rambling. “Send snipers to my place or whatever. I thought it would be safer to come here, so that we can fight First Order off together.”

“Uh, Poe?” Finn wanders out of the bathroom, one towel wrapped around his waist, the other around his neck to catch his dripping hair. “Paranoid much?”

But Rey, who’s seen the walls around the facility and know what they’re for, nods. “I get it. You can trust us. So what’s up?”

Poe smiles, gratefully. “I knew you guys were the best. So, have you heard about Project Osiris?”

Finn sits down on the chair across from him. He frowns. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, I’ve heard whispers about it from some of the other physicians on staff. Apparently executive has been asking around, creating a team of specialists for this project, headed by Dr. Hux from Internal. Eventually, they got to me, and asked me about my expertise with nanosurgery and the like.”

“You’ve got a lot of experience from attaching some of our permanent prosthetics.” Rey raises an eyebrow. “So, now you’re on this special team?”

“Not quite. I did a bit of digging around, and it turns out this project is going to involve working with Ben Solo.”

Rey’s stomach does a strange swoop. “How so?”

“More accurately...working on him.” Poe chews his lip and looks around the apartment suspiciously, as if First Order security is about to burst out of their kitchen cupboards and attack him. “Guys, I think they’re planning on killing him.”

The room goes silent. Finn frowns and scrubs at his face with his towel. “Killing him?” he asks Poe. “Are you sure?”

“But they can’t,” Rey blurts out, sharing a look with Finn. “I thought that came with the whole RCD thing. They can’t kill him because his body will just regenerate.”

“That’s the theory. But all of their testing so far has been limited to incisions, toxins, very minor dismemberment. I KNOW guys, I know!” Poe shakes his head at their incredulous expressions. “I’ve just found this out myself, so don’t go biting my head off.”

Ben’s pained expression flashes in front of her eyes, and Rey has to blink back tears. His anger, his emphatic demands that she stay quiet and protect herself makes so much sense now. “So, what’s changed?”

“Snoke’s grown impatient. So far, they’ve failed to recreate any regenerative abilities with the cellular samples they’ve taken, and he thinks it’s because they’re too focused on preserving the subject. He wants them to be more aggressive.”

“Meaning…?”

Poe sighs. “Limbs. They want to try taking limbs, and harvesting brain matter, regardless of the impact it may have on the subject–”

“Ben,” Rey interjects. “His name is Ben.”

Wincing, Poe nods his head. “Yes, Ben. Sorry, I’ve been skimming through his charts all morning, so it’s been stuck in my head like that. Regardless of the impact it may have on Ben. Essentially, they’re planning on tearing him apart.”

“You said Snoke’s impatient,” Finn clarifies. “That’s why he’s escalating. Not for any other reason?” Unconsciously, he reaches out add squeezes Rey’s hand. “They haven’t found anyone else yet with RCD?”

“See, that’s what I was thinking too, but so far no. Not that I’ve found out.”

Rey smothers her gasp of relief. “He must be under a lot of pressure then, to potentially jeopardize his project like this.”

“I’ll say. It’s been what, four years now? Four years and no conclusive results. The research on Ben is being funded entirely by contributions from pharmaceutical companies.” Poe rests his hands on their coffee table and leans forward. “They’re starting the first phase of this project tomorrow afternoon, and I don’t know what to do. Will the police even listen? This all sounds kind of crazy.”

“We’ve got to tell him,” Finn announces. His mouth is set in a hard line, determined. ‘“We’ve got to tell Ben, to warn him.”

“It’s not like he can just walk out,” Rey hisses. “Especially if they’re planning on chopping him into pieces.”

“Then we break him out.” Finn turns to Poe. “There’s gotta be a way to sneak him out of there. Through the ventilation, maybe?”

“Finn, buddy, you’ve been watching too many spy movies. The HVAC at work is barely big enough to smuggle a gerbil through, and Ben is a big guy. No, we’ll have to get him out some other way.”

“Well, we could get him out through the basement. No one in IT or maintenance gives a shit, and the exit is far enough from the front that we could get him into a car no problem.” Excited, Finn grabs a pad of sticky notes from underneath the coffee table and starts jotting down notes. “I have a friend who maintains the servers down there. She could beep him out no problem.”

“That’s a great idea, but how do we get him down there? R&D is three buildings over from maintenance, and a floor down. I’m guessing they have a tight enough leash on this guy that they’re not going to let him just wander all over the campus.”

“The infectious disease lab.” Rey chews on her fingernail as she continues. “If we can get him off-grid, we can put him in a full hazmat and get him to walk all the way to Infec, which is right above maintenance.”

Finn bumps her shoulder with his. “That’s great, Peanut, but I think we’re all forgetting something. How are we going to organize all of this and tell him about it before tomorrow afternoon? And manage to not get killed, all at the same time?”

Poe chuckles. “Now who’s paranoid?”

“No, no, this will all work out.” Rey yanks the sticky notes from Finn’s hand and starts writing. “Ben takes his smoke break outside our lab around 11 AM every day. Poe, you can snatch one of Dr. Phasma’s hazmat suits from supply when you pick up your scrubs for the week. She’s super tall, so hers should fit him.” 

“How do you know about his smoke breaks?” Finn laughs. “Stalker much?”

“Oh, he wishes.” 

The night is sleepless. Rey spends most of it curled up in her blankets as Finn texts his friend Rose the details of their plot. She gets out of bed early, brushes her teeth, waters their collection of herbs on the windowsill, anything to occupy her mind as Finn prepares breakfast. His kiss before they leave the apartment lingers a bit longer than normal, as if he’s trying to memorize her face with his lips, and the drive to work is spent with her hand clasped in his.

It goes smoother than they planned it. Like clockwork, around eleven Rey hears the tell-tale thump of Ben resting up against their lab’s exterior door. Claiming a need for fresh air, she slips outside and faces him. 

“We’re breaking you out,” she announces, voice barely louder than a whisper.

He frowns, then blows out a thick cloud of mint scented vapour. “We? We who?”

“Poe and Finn and me.” She pulls out a fresh scalpel from her lab coat. “Now, where did they chip you?”

He drops his vape out of shock. “Whoa, whoa, Rey! Put that thing down.”

“Why, it’s not like I’m going to hurt _you_.”

“That’s not the point!” He leans closer. “Why are you and Poe and whoever trying to break me out?”

She shakes her head, frustrated. “Because they’re going to kill you.”

He shrugs and lets out a small chuckle. “But they can’t.”

“They only think that because they haven’t tried hard enough yet, stupid. You have a special operation this morning, right?”

“Yeah, I was briefed on it this morning. Some new procedures.” He hesitates. “...you’re saying they’ve found a way?”

“It’s called Project Osiris. You’ve heard about Osiris, right?” She gestures with her scalpel. “He was an Egyptian god who was cut into a bunch of pieces and–”

“–yeah, yeah, I think I get the picture. That-that might work, and even if it doesn’t, I don’t really want to try it out.” His hands begin to shake, until he stuffs them into his pockets and faces her. “So, there’s a plan?”

She brandishes the scalpel. “First, the chip.”

Groaning, he winces a bit before he offers her his right arm. “Under the wrist, about an inch deep.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” Rey grits her teeth and plunges the blade unto his pale skin. Blood spurts up, which she catches in a towel she pulls from her pocket. “So the plan goes like this: Poe’s going to bring you a hazmat suit, which you’re going to put on before you head across campus to Infec. D’you know where that is?”

“Mhhmmmm.” He’s staring straight into her eyes. His left one twitches slightly, but other than that there are no indicators that he can feel her digging a scalpel through his wrist. 

“Once you’re at Infec, you’re going to head downstairs to maintenance, where you’ll meet Rose. She’ll beep you through the exit there, which isn’t monitored as much as the main doors. Finn’s ordered you an Uber, who’ll take you wherever you want to go. Within reason, of course.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He bites his lip as she gingerly fishes a tiny silicon microchip from the mangled flesh of his arm. “Wow, you’re really not squeamish, are you?”

“Kind of goes with the territory. I’ve seen my own guts, and it doesn’t really get worse than that, does it?”

“No, not really.” 

Triumphant, she holds up the chip, still caked in his blood and flecks of skin. “I’m going to wait a half hour and then flush this down the lunchroom sink. Sound good?”

“Sure, whatever you think.” He rubs at his mending wrists.

“Itches, doesn’t it?”

“Every time.”

They share a smile of understanding, then his face falls. “What’s going to happen to you?”

She shrugs. “Hopefully nothing. We’ll lie low, then try and move to different jobs within the next few months.”

He nods. “Promise me you’ll keep quiet. Move to a small town and don’t ever tell anyone. Or—” He catches himself, and his face flushes.

“Or what?”

“Come with me?” It’s a plea more than a question. “I know we barely know each other, but I already feel like we have so much in common. And let’s face it, if we are immortal, we’ll probably spend the rest of eternity running into each other anyway. It’s a small world.”

“Come with you? But I–” 

A lifetime flashes before her eyes, of fake names and backwoods hideouts, of whispered half truths and false names. It’s tempting, to leap into the unknown with the only other person with whom she shares this strange existence. There would be no need for secrets between them, no need for her to explain how she never sunburns or why she constantly puts off her yearly physical. She imagines getting to know her tall, mysterious counterpart by way of late night confessions, resigning themselves to a thousand lifetimes of each other while the world withers around them. 

He would grow sick of her. She knows it just as much as she knows that he’s only asking her to leave with him out of desperation. “I have a boyfriend,” she finishes, averting her eyes.

He snorts. “A boyfriend_?_” 

“Don’t say it like that!”

“Like what? Like it’s something fleeting, impermanent?”

“You said it yourself, it’s only a theory that we’re immortal.” 

“It’s a very good theory.”

“I’m not betting my happiness on a very good theory, Ben.”

His nostrils flare with frustration. “But we’re inevitable. Don’t you see that?” 

“Oh, great, so appealing!” She rolls her eyes. “Why would I leave with you, someone I barelyknow, when I have a job and a boyfriend and people who care about me here!”

“Well good for you!” he snarls. He runs a trembling hand through his hair and clenches his teeth. “It was stupid, forget I said anything.”

“Fine! I will!”

Mercifully, there’s a soft knock at the door signalling Poe’s arrival with Ben’s new outfit. Rey grimaces, jittery in her own skin from nerves and raw emotion, and wrenches the door open. “Took you long enough!”

Poe, arms full of hazmat suit, instinctively steps back. “Hey, I’m just doing my best here!” He turns to Ben. “You’ve been briefed on the plan?”

“Yeah.” Reaching down, he retrieves his vape from the dusty concrete and tucks it into the pocket of his jeans. “Put on the body bag, walk over to the disease lab, leave through maintenance.”

Wordlessly, Rey kneels down to arrange the suit so Ben can step into it, then pulls up the full length zipper, awkwardly shoving his pant legs in as she goes. He moves to help her, but she bats his hand away while Poe continues:

“Our friend Rose will buzz you out. There’ll be an Uber at the exit, which you can take to wherever you need to go. Don’t try and contact us; we’ll assume you’re fine as long as we don’t see your death on the evening news. Oh, and the doctor this belongs to is female, so try to–” Poe purses his lips and wiggles his hips from side to side. 

Ben’s forehead wrinkles. “I’ll try my best.”

“Just doit! No trying!” Poe goes to punch him in the shoulder, then thinks better of it and wrings his hand instead. “Rey, you almost done?”

“Mmhm.” She grabs the proffered mask and goggles from Poe’s hand, and fastens them around Ben’s face. They completely mask his identity, hiding his face behind layers of air filter and tinted plastic. 

“Okay then, follow me.” Poe pats Ben’s arm, then takes off down the concrete alley. Ben pauses, shifting the mask and goggles slightly so Rey can make out the resigned downturn of his lips. 

“I guess I’ll see you later then.”

The normally innocuous words hang heavy in the air, speaking of centuries to come. He pulls the mask back over his mouth and takes in a laboured breath through the filters. 

Rey just nods and watches as his broad, Tyvek covered back turns to follow Poe. 

Later at home, she scrolls through news feeds, nervously biting her nails. She does it every night for the next month, and sees nothing.

* * *

_Time passes._

_Finn finds a new job a few cities over. It’s with kids, which he loves, and pays well enough that Rey can take some time off to find a job that appeals to her, _if _she wants to. He doesn’t assume that she’ll follow him, but when she starts mixing her stuff with his as he packs, he drops to one knee and proposes on the spot._

_She says yes. She would be stupid not to._

_They hug Poe and Rose and everyone else goodbye, then she hops into the driver’s seat of their rented UHaul and takes off, Finn following behind her in their modest sedan. They arrive at their new home, a three bedroom sixties bungalow, and start unpacking that night. One spare bedroom becomes an office, while the other remains promisingly empty._

_The local hospital needs someone to maintain MRIs and Rey’s eager to get back to work, despite the job being a bit below her level of expertise. It’s monotonous, but the routine makes for quick days, and leaves her with enough energy to have fun for once in her life. She takes up baking and woodworking, and together she and Finn build enough furniture to fill their home._

_Their wedding is an intimate affair. The ceremony takes place in a local park, during peak spring when the apple blossoms are in bloom. Rey feels like the luckiest person alive, dressed in a lacy white sundress with Finn’s smile focused on her, blazing like the sun. They clasp hands in front of the officiant and swear to be faithful until death do they part, and Rey feels her belly clench nervously. For a moment, she swears she can see a black coated figure lurking at the edge of the trees, but she discounts it as a trick of the light._

_Finn notices something’s off a few years into their marriage. His looks at old photos and remarks on how she’s looked the same since her first year of college. She laughs it off, crediting her rigorous skincare routine even though most nights she barely remembers to wash her face. He’s suspicious, but doesn’t press the issue._

_That is, until the years go by, and the second bedroom remains empty._

**2028**

The air smells of antiseptic and sadness. 

Cold sweat blooms on her fingertips, prompting Finn to squeeze her hand tighter in his. “It’ll be fine,” he murmurs reassuringly. “We can leave whenever you want to. It’ll just be good to check things out and make sure everything’s okay.”

The hard metal of his wedding band digs into her pinkie. “Everything’s obviously not okay,” she bites back.

He says nothing. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulls her tight against him and tucks her head under his chin, strong and stoic as her tears soak into the ivory cotton of his sweater.

Five miscarriages. One after another, over the span of two years. Five little babies, just bundles of cells never given the chance to live their lives, unceremoniously expelled while Rey cried herself to sleep on the bathroom floor.

Finn has been...Finn about it, meaning that he’s been as solid as a rock while denying and biting back the pain she can clearly see in his eyes. Becoming a father was his ultimate goal in life, and she’s the roadblock. Her and her stupid, regenerating, traitorous body that’s obviously too self centred to allow any parasite to grow, especially one as draining as a fetus. 

At least that’s the theory. She was ready to take this mystery to her grave, however long that might take, but Finn’s convinced her to at least see an obstetrician, just to make sure everything seems approximately normal down there. She resisted, for obvious reasons, but he wore her down enough to agree to at least come to the appointment, with the caveat that she can walk whenever she wants to.

They call her name, and she feels like she wants to jump out of her skin. Only Finn’s hand on her shoulder keeps her grounded as they lead her through a butter yellow hallway past endless doors until they reach a darkened room. He helps her thread her trembling limbs into a hospital gown, then sits next to her patiently as a technician deposits a smear of cold gel onto her abdomen and probes it with the ultrasound wand.

The obstetrician, tapping his pen rhythmically on his cheek, watches the black and white image of her uterus and ovaries throb on the screen. “Interesting,” he drones, then tugs her chart out from his armpit to jot down a few notations.

“Interesting? What does that mean, exactly?” Finn asks, eyes darting from the doctor to the technician, then back again.

The technician shrugs. “Got it?” she asks the obstetrician.

“We could do an internal as well, just to be thorough, though to be honest–” He looks over at Rey. “M’am, your reproductive organs are flawless. Kaydel, if you could?”

Nodding, the technician places the wand back on its stand and wipes up the gel with a thin tissue before quickly exiting the room. The doctor squats down on the recently vacated stool and says, “The good news is that there is no sign of scarring or abnormalities on your reproductive organs.”

Finn grins and squeezes Rey’s hand. “That’s great!”

The room goes silent, and the doctor stares nervously down at his chart.

“What’s the bad news?” Rey wonders, her voice small. 

“I see from your intake forms that you’ve experienced five miscarriages over the past two years. Judging from today’s ultrasound, there are no physical reasons why that would happen, which makes genetic incompatibility the most probable cause.”

He looks between the two of them, eyes cautious. 

“There are several possible solutions, egg, sperm, or fetal donation being the most common. You could also seek out a surrogate, if that appeals to you.” He resumes tapping his pen, this time on the clipboard holding her chart. “A surrogate may also be the best option in case your infertility is caused by reproductive autoimmune failure syndrome, or a ‘hostile womb,’ as it is colloquially known.”

Rey’s stomach clenches. “Is there any medication for that? To fix a hostile womb?”

“None currently available.” The obstetrician notes her interest, and shakes his head. “It’s a very rare syndrome, and highly unlikely in your case, as you haven’t presented with endometriosis or any other indicators. It’s more than likely that a donor egg or sperm will completely fix the issue.”

“Thank you, doctor.” Finn stands, presenting his hand while stepping between the other man and Rey. “This has been very informative.”

The ride home is silent, punctuated by the gentle clunk of their car hitting freshly emerged springtime potholes. It’s only once they’ve returned, when Rey’s wrapped up in her bathrobe with a steaming mug of tea in her hands that she whispers, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“There’s just so much I don’t know. For sure. About...me.” She holds out a free hand in surrender. “About what I am.”

“What you are?” He laughs, with just a tinge of sadness, and grasps her hand in his. “Rey, you make it sound like you’re some sort of freak.”

She feels the sharp sting of tears beginning to prick the corners of her eyes. “Aren’t I, though? I don’t age, I can’t have children, I–”

“Hey, hey! That’s my wife you’re talking about.” He squeezes her hand, then brings it up to his lips for a gentle kiss. “You’re so much more than what you can or can’t do, Rey. You’re brilliant, you’re kind, you’re beautiful, and you’re you. So worthy of love.”

“But kids. You love kids. You’ve wanted them–”

“I want you. Kids are…” He laughs. “Babe, I work with tons of kids every day. There’s only one you, and you’re worth it. All of it.”

He doesn’t mention the lack of aging, and she doesn’t press it. Instead, she chooses to ignore everything else, and sink back into the wonderful, all-encompassing warmth of his arms.

* * *

_Time passes._

_Finn is an amazing husband. He’s kind, smart, resourceful; everything of which she could have dreamed. He deftly diverts conversation whenever the topic of children comes up, and transforms the second bedroom into a workshop for her without being prompted. They throw themselves into their work and, for a time, all is well. Sometimes, she can see the sadness written on his brow, but he’s quick to plaster on a grin any time he meets her gaze and smothers her concern with kisses. _

_He surprises her with a trip to the Alps, and she’s never had as much fun as she does when she’s backpacking with him amidst the clouds. They kiss under a full moon, snack on fresh goat’s milk cheese, and forget that they’re anything more than Rey and Finn, international travellers who happen to be madly in love._

_They move, often. It’s a reality of her condition, that she only really has about ten to fifteen years in any one location before people start to notice that she doesn’t age. Finn jokes that they’re lucky ‘Black don’t crack’ but even his smooth, clear skin starts to develop fine lines and wrinkles. She plays the part of the trophy wife, quitting her job before her resume betrays her ageless face, and weathers comments about how lucky her husband is to have landed someone so young, yet so well spoken._

_But one day, it’s not enough. His body starts to betray him, with creaks and aches that project his seventy plus years, and Rey begins the transition from wife to caregiver with an ease she never would have expected. They move into a rancher and tell the neighbours that she’s his live-in nurse, and it’s not a lie. Not any more. _

_He passes away peacefully in his bed on a rainy September day. His funeral is small, attended by some neighbours and the woman who runs the pharmacy on the corner where Rey used to get his meds. She wishes they could all be here, everyone they’ve met over their long lives together, friends from work, his hockey buddies, remaining family, but they’ve all lost touch out of necessity._

_All but one. _

_He slinks in the back of the chapel right before the service starts. She can tell because the room shifts slightly, like it always does when she’s spotted him in the background of her life, and she feels a chill run down her spine. Her eyes remain fixed on Finn’s casket throughout, and when she turns down the aisle for the recessional, Ben’s already gone._

**2085**

She didn’t think this through.

It was an impulsive decision, inspired by old photos, loneliness, and an entire bottle of the world’s cheapest moscato, and now she’s stuck here, hanging from the chandelier in the dining room she formerly shared with her now deceased husband. The teak chair she’d used to get herself into this situation is a good three feet away, kicked with the gusto of what was supposed to be her last few moments of life, and now she can’t reach anything to stabilize herself and wiggle this godforsaken noose off her neck.

Because she doesn’t need to breathe. Of course she doesn’t need to breathe; it makes sense when you think about it. Why would she need to breathe when her cells can survive in an anaerobic environment? At this point, the action is just reflex, just something she does to cling on to her humanity, and now her impulsivity has damned her to an eternity of swinging back and forth on this rope until it rots. She would laugh if she had the air. As it stands, she can only mentally berate herself for not testingstrangulation.

Minutes turn to hours, tracked by trailing shadows on the wallpaper. Rey recites the periodic table, recounts old memories, and even runs through old TV theme songs, notes bouncing around her skull until she feels herself start to go insane. She wonders, idly, if she’ll have to wait for the house to rot around her, and if she can do anything from her position to accelerate it. For the first eighty or so years, eternity seemed appealing, but now she fully understands what Ben meant about it being a curse. 

_Ben. _She allows herself a twinge of regret, because at this point it hurts nothing. Arguably she wouldn’t be in this mess at all if she had just gone with him when he’d invited her. Sure, the regret would switch to Finn, to their beautiful life in all of its messiness, but at least she would never have to deal with the soul crushing sorrow of losing, over and over and over again.

She closes her eyes and relaxes, picturing waves crashing on a sandy beach as she coaxes her beta waves into submission. For all she knows at this point, she may not even need sleep but she manages to reignite it reflexively, drifting off with the rope chafing against her neck’s soft skin.

“Jesus, Rey, what have you done now?”

Her eyes snap back open. Ben’s hands are on the rope as he perches precariously on her dining room table. It’s been a few hours, judging by the darkness outside, and he smells like cologne and crisp winter air.

“Ben,” she croaks, her vocal chords already mending themselves. “What are you doing here?”

He snorts. “I’m saving your pathetic ass from swinging here for all eternity.”

“How did you know–?”

“–that you weren’t dead?” He shrugs casually. “Let’s just say that I have some personal experience with this particular method.”

Deftly, he catches her aching body in one arm as he unhooks the rope from her chandelier with the other. Rey, already feeling like shit, flushes with a new wave of shame and sorrow as she steps off of the table with wobbly legs. “I didn’t know you ever tried...that this_…_”

He sits down on the tabletop and wiggles his feet over the edge, seemingly to diffuse the tension. “It was a few years ago. You’re not the only one who sometimes feels like shit, you know?” 

“That’s not what I meant, Ben, I just didn’t know you ever felt lonely enough to–”

It’s a stupid thing to say, but she doesn’t catch herself in time to reel the foolish words back into her mouth. Ben’s face falls. “That’s funny,” he chuckles. “Considering you were the one to–”

“How did you know?” Rey interrupts, not willing to go down that road, not right now. “I meant before, how did you know to come looking for me?”

He goes silent and just stares at her, his warm brown eyes heavy and piercing as he examines her face, her neck, before trailing down to rest on her left hand, still bedecked with a plain gold band. “I know what day it is today,” he finally says. His voice has gone gravelly, tinged with a painful rasp. “I know it’s been a year since–since it happened.”

“Since Finn died.” She’s proud of how strong she sounds, how her voice doesn’t even wobble once. “You can say it.”

“He’s not mine to talk about.”

“He’s just a person, Ben, not your mortal enemy.” She rolls her eyes. “Stop being so dramatic.” 

“Says the woman who just tried, and failed might I add, to hang herself from a chandelier,” he spits. The table groans as he jumps to the ground and stalks across the room. “I figured you wouldn’t want to be alone today, and I guess I was right.”

“Then what took you so long?”

He ducks his head, but she’s able to catch the way his gaze flicks towards the entryway, to the slightly trampled bouquet of orange and blue blossoms hastily discarded on the floor. She takes in a gasp, then looks back at him.

“Delia pavorum? But how did you even–?”

“There was a bodega that had it about twenty blocks away. I had to check a bunch of them,” he mumbles. Squaring his shoulders, he stands up straight and faces her, eyes suddenly glassy. “Why–?” He pauses to chew on his lip, then restarts his question. “Why didn’t you find me? Why didn’t you tell me that you felt like this? I would have come, I swear it.”

She turns away from him, moving to examine her teak buffet’s varnished top . It’s smooth as silk under her fingertips, just as smooth as it had been over fifty years ago when she had bought it. “We don’t talk, not really. Did you expect me to scream for you? To post my loneliness all over the ‘Net? What good would it have done?” she whispers.

“What good–Rey, I would have come here the instant I knew!”

“Of course you would have.” Her voice sounds far away, unfocused. So cold and distant when she continues, “Because it would have been your chance.”

Ben stands there, silent. She continues to face the buffet because she can’t, _won’t,_ see the way his face is breaking, the way her callous words have sliced into him with the cruelest stroke. 

“I don’t even know why I bother.” Finally, he retreats, his heavy boots thunderous against the hardwood floor. She chances a peek before the door slams, and is faced with him staring back at her, his hands resting on the doorframe. “I know I said before that we’re inevitable, that you’re just putting off something that’s fated to be–”

“Ben,” she breathes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

His head bows. “Yes, you did. You meant it before, and you meant it this time too. You’ll never want me because you feel you have no choice and I...I’m fine with that now.”

“Ben, no_.”_

“Have a good life, Rey.” He gives her a small, sad smile. “I’ll see you at the end.”

* * *

_Time passes. _

_She sells the house and the furniture and buys a small townhouse with big windows and even bigger bookshelves, which she fills with a fraction of the vast ocean of human knowledge. Starting with Latin, she immerses herself in the task of expanding her skillset enough that she can accomplish what has become her ultimate goal: saving humanity from itself._

_Because the world has gotten worse. While she and Finn had played house for sixty years, the major world powers had focused on demolishing the rainforests, melting the polar ice caps, and pumping pollution into the skies and oceans. Cancer rates are through the roof, and the birth defects are steadily rising. The air no longer smells as sweet as it used to when she walks outside, and the grass no longer seems quite so green,_

_True to his word, Ben no longer appears at the edges of her vision. Soon, she forgets his long face, his sad smile._

**2099**

His name is Bryann, and she’s not in love with him.

Honestly, she’s not sure she could love again, not after Finn. Their love was so all-encompassing, so fulfilling and warm, and she’s fairly certain she’ll never feel that way again about another person. But Bryann is funny and makes her feel young, in spite of the massive age difference between the two of them. He’s a pediatric surgeon, so together they share a love of science and research. 

It’s taken her a while to get here, but here she is again: seated on Bryann’s firm teal couch, bloody pocket knife in hand, watching his reaction with nervous eyes. There’s a beat, and then–

“Cool.”

She almost drops the knife. “Cool? That’s it?”

He shrugs. “It’s cool. What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know, I just figured you would be shocked, or something.”

“Do you want me to be shocked?” He plasters a cartoonish surprised expression onto his face. “Oh wow! That’s crazy!”

“No, not like that, I just–” 

“S’okay babe, I get it. I just see a lot of weird stuff all day, so something like this doesn’t really phase me.”

“Don’t talk to me like that. I’m over a hundred years old, you know.” She puts enough sass in her voice to lighten the tone, but it’s not enough to disguise her hurt.

He nudges her knee with his, amber coloured eyes twinkling with mischief. “Well, you don’t look a day over 99, bun.”

She’s a bit sensitive for the rest of the night, so he treats her to delivery from her favourite restaurant and even deigns to eat her out until she comes before mounting her for some sweaty, not entirely satisfying sex. She nods off afterwards, curled up in blankets that smell like laundry soap and the spicy tang of Bryann’s aftershave.

She wakes with a start maybe an hour later. It’s still dark, but his side of the bed is conspicuously empty. There’s a rustle out in the living room, followed by a hushed voice mumbling words she can barely make out.

“–yeah, that’s what it said. No, no, I saw it too, yeah, healed up pretty much immediately.”

Her blood runs cold. Instinctively, she presses herself into the bed, modulates her breathing, and wracks her brain for an escape plan. How could she be so stupid? Finn was an anomaly, she knows this, and yet she decided to try and trust someone else? Someone she’s known for only a few years?

There’s a laugh from the other room, and then Bryann continues. “Yeah, I read Snoke’s old notes. He said that Solo had a regenerative rate of 15 seconds per cubic centimetre. We should be able to fill at least a truck a day, as long as there aren’t diminishing returns. No, I don’t know if it needs food–”

“No,” she gasps soundlessly into her pillow. An organ thief. There’s been a sharp rise in black market organ dealers to meet the demand of desperate patients, but she never could have imagined that, out of anyone on the planet, she would choose to volunteer her secret to the one person who could stand to make the most off of it.

Has he always known? A chill runs down her spine as she remembers the day they met, how he’d zeroed in on her at the conference. She had been nervous; it was the first event she’d gone to with that particular alias, and even after all these years, she’s always a bit slow the first year or so with a new name. 

“Leigh Grant,” he’d said, savouring the name on his tongue. “Beautiful.”

After the fact, he’d told her that there would never be anyone else for him, not after seeing her that day. But what if he’d targeted her? Had she been sloppy? Followed?

She hears him end his call. Heart thudding, she makes her muscles go lax as he snuggles back into the bed and curls around her, one arm thrown over her waist possessively. The action is nothing out of the ordinary, but tonight his arm feels heavier than usual, pinning her to the mattress with an aggression she never felt previously. 

She counts the seconds, one by one. Once she gets to three thousand, she rustles, letting out a small groan. He lifts his head in response, so she mumbles, “Bathroom,” and he drops down again.

She locks the door behind her with deft fingers, then runs to the tiny window over the bathtub. It’s been painted over far too many times, so she has to pry it open with her nails as she takes deep, steadying breaths. Finally, she’s able to wiggle it high enough squeeze her body through, but before she leaves, she grabs her eyebrow scissors and, with a wince, stabs them into her thigh.

The pool of blood is about the size of a saucer by the time her wound closes up. It’s enough to smear over the floor, the faucet, into the grout around the sink, places blood might flow in the event of a tragic accident or murder. Satisfied with her crime scene, she forces herself through the window, gathers her courage, and lets herself free fall ten stories down. 

It always hurts. Luckily, it’s late enough that she’s sure no one has seen her, and she aimed for the bushes to cushion the sound of her fall. She relaxes for a minute, no more, until she’s healed enough to pick herself up and start running down the street. 

These days, every lamppost is equipped with surveillance cameras. She jogs for ten blocks before stopping at one, facing it with a determined look. “My name is Leigh Grant,” she states, staring straight at the eerie red glow. “It’s 3 AM on Thursday, Dec 31st. I’ve just overheard that my boyfriend, Bryann Justis Lindsay, is planning to kill me and sell my organs.”

She looks over her shoulder, convinced that she can hear the hum of a vehicle down the deserted streets. “I’m heading south west on Cranberry Avenue towards the bus depot. If anyone is watching this, please. Help me.”

It’s not paranoia. She can hear a rumble, low and steady, whooshing around corners as if searching for something or someone. It has to be a vehicle, and her primitive hindbrain is screaming that it’s Bryann. With one last look of desperation at the camera, she tenses her muscles and takes off down the street.

Despite her regenerative cells, she can’t run forever. Years of study have left her muscles lax and her endurance lacking. Cranberry Ave. is seventy-two blocks long and the bus depot is on the seventy first, with little trees or cover along the way. Rey ducks her head and keeps running, even as her muscles begin to scream in pain.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid, _pulses like a mantra through her brain. Of all the ridiculous things to be doing at the age of a hundred and two, running from an evil, organ snatching boyfriend in the dead of night has got to be up there. 

At least she’s not heartbroken.

He’s catching up to her. Not willing to speed on the residential streets, the vehicle trails up Cranberry Ave at a leisurely 30 kilometres an hour, but she can’t outrun it, not when her thighs are burning and sweat is dripping into her eyes. The sidewalks etch themselves onto her bare feet, her soles constantly healing small cuts and divots caused by pebbles and broken glass. She doesn’t even feel the pain as adrenaline pumps a steady pulse through her veins.

There’s 50 more blocks until the depot when her muscles seize and she stumbles head first onto the concrete, leaving a smear of scarlet against the pitted grey. Suddenly, she feels hands gripping her, pinning her to the ground, flipping her over to cram a fist against her windpipe.

“Stupid whore,” Bryann spits. He’s dressed in his sleep shorts with a windbreaker thrown over his shoulders, looking every inch the deranged psychopath. 

Her lips curl. She can smell his rancid sneakers under her nose. Wiggling her legs, she tries to topple him over, but he’s bigger and heavier than her, and she only annoys him further.

“Just pass out already,” he hisses, squeezing her throat even tighter than before.

She rolls her eyes, and mouths _don’t need air_ back at him.

“Fuck.” Determined, he frees her neck, then moves his hands higher. “Then come back from this.”

She hears the hum of another vehicle before pain shoots through her skull and her vision goes black as the bastard shoves his thumbs into her eye sockets. “Motherf–” she starts, until his knee slams back into her throat.

There’s a slamming car door, and she braces herself for more hands and pain that never comes. Instead, air rushes into her lungs as Bryann is removed from on top of her. Her eves are reforming but there’s blood everywhere, up her nose, in her mouth, still pooling in her eye sockets, blinding her to the action, then all of a sudden she’s being hoisted up and she screams_._

_“_Hushhhh,” insists her captor. Their voice is unlike anything she’s heard before, strangely muffled with a metallic edge to it that reminds her of a roaring old fashioned vacuum cleaner. She chances a look at them, but all she can see through the haze of blood is wild, dark hair and black tinted metal.

“Please,” she pleads. “Please let me go, please.” 

“Relax,” purrs the voice. They take a couple more steps, and then lay her down on a plush seat that’s vibrating to an engine’s hum. A door shuts behind her, then the voice instructs to an unknown audience, “Take care of him.”

She feels the sensation of movement as her seat lurches slightly. Holding her head, she’s about to demand for answers when a cool, wet cloth presses onto her face, dabbing the blood away from her eyes. “Hold still,” the voice instructs. 

“Don’t–I can–” she mumbles, swatting away their hands.

“I said, hold still.” The cloth pulls away. She can make out leather gloved hands and a carafe of ice water before it’s pressed to her face again, sponging away the last of the blood. 

She rubs her face when they’re done, resisting the urge to dig her nails into her freshly grown eyeballs to stem the pervasive itch. Her captor relaxes across from her, placing the water and cloth into a small ledge embedded in the vehicle door. They’re in a sleek black-interiored VersaCraft, the modern version of what she used to call a limousine, with enough space in the back for her to slump against the bench seats. The partition is down, exposing the driverless front seat and twinkling cityscape before them.

“I left him behind to take care of your little problem.”

Her captor is wearing a full face mask made of shiny, black metal, with a respirator covering their mouth. It’s not as strange as it would have seemed years ago; now, many people have taken to wearing masks on the street to filter out environmental contaminants. Theirs is just more dramatic than usual, making their face appear robotic and intimidating in the low light, enhanced by the thick layers of black clothing that make them look like some sort of post-apocalyptic nomad.

“Are you going to kill me?” Her voice sounds thin and reedy.

The masked head cocks to the side. “You and I both know that would be an exercise in futility, don’t we Rey?”

She scuffles back into the luxuriously upholstered seat. “How do you–?”

Leather gloved hands reach up to the mask’s straps and release the latches. With a thump, it drops onto their lap, revealing the flushed, lineless face of Ben Solo, looking identical to the day she first saw him. Rey chokes, fingers flying to her mouth as a wave of emotions rolls through her gut.

“Ben?” She’s crying, _why is she crying_? It must be the loneliness, hammered heavy into her heart the moment Finn died and Ben walked out her front door. She feels like she’s hallucinating, even though she’s impervious to drugs and toxins. Just seeing him sitting across from her is enough to make her feel lightheaded. 

“Yes.” His mouth remains in a firm line. Though his face is ageless, his expression has transformed into something hard and unyielding. “What has it been now, ten years at least?”

“Fourteen,” she counters. 

He hums to himself. “Hm. Time flies.”

She turns and rests her forehead against the window. Buildings fly past, static monuments to a species fighting tooth and nail against their own mortality. She shivers. “Where are you taking me?” she mumbles, her breath fogging up the glass.

“Where would you like to go?”

“I don’t know.” She’d rather die than return to Bryann’s apartment, but there’s something about giving Ben the address of her townhouse that makes her hesitate. “You can just drop me off here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” There’s a rustling sound, then the heavy weight of something thick and wool being dropped on her body. “It’s the middle of winter, and you’ve just evaded a pack of organ snatchers.”

“Winter’s not what it used to be.”

“That’s beside the point.”

She turns to look at him. His formerly impassive face has twisted with annoyance into a half-grimace that looks ready to crack any second. “Just come back with me,” he blurts out. “For a day or two. So you can be sure you’re safe.”

Despite herself, she burrows into his warm cloak. “So I can be sure I’m safe?”

“It’s obvious that he wasn’t working alone. The man he called before you escaped, he’s the leader of one of the largest black market organ smuggling rings in the country.”

“And how would you know that?” She frowns. “Have you been keeping tabs on me?”

She should be annoyed at the privacy breach, but she’s getting too much amusement in watching his blush creep up to his temples and the tips of his ears. “Someone had to,” he mutters. “You have horrifically bad taste in men.”

“Finn would beg to differ.”

“Finn was an anomaly.”

“So what does that say about you then?”

He swallows back his reply, his mouth left hanging slightly open. “I don’t know, Rey,” he stammers, recovering quickly. “What does that say about me?”

“That you have shit taste in women, I guess.” 

“Accurate observation.” Finally his facade cracks open and he stares at her with unearned fondness. “Stay with me? Please?”

“Ben, we’ve been over this, I–”

He waves a black gloved hand in the air. “No, no, not that way. I’m familiar with your disdain of the thought of eternal monogamy with me. I just meant tonight. You shouldn’t be alone. It’s New Year’s, after all.”

“I’ve been alone for New Year’s before,” she counters. “Many times.”

“So have I.”

They sit at a standstill, him unmasked and breathless, her wrapped in his cloak and shivering. Rey glances out the window. They’re out of town now, heading past solar farms and dilapidated old factories. She hasn’t been out this far in a while, not since Finn died and she packed herself away in the townhouse with her studies. 

“It’s bleaker than I remember,” she murmurs. “Out there. I remember when that plastic reprocessing plant was opened 35 years ago. Do you know what happened to it?”

“There was a protest a few years ago, against the fumes. Then it was closed.” Ben stares at her intently. “You’re avoiding my question.”

“Maybe I am.”

“Why?” He crosses his arms in front of him. “You’re not giving up, Rey. It’s a temporary truce for one day.”

“We’re not fighting, though. Why are you calling it a truce?”

“Stop being petulant.”

“I will once you start taking no for an answer.”

He lets out a huff of air, his bottom lip pouting like a child’s. “Fine.” 

Looking out the window, she stares at the bleak countryside and starts feeling her resolve melt. She’s lonely. It doesn’t do her any good to deny it. She foolishly bared herself to someone she thought she could trust, he betrayed her trust the next minute, and it stings_._

“I’m alone, Ben,” she sighs. “And I’m going to be alone for a long time.”

“But–”

“Just let me finish, please.” She collects her thoughts, wrapping them around her just as she wraps his cloak around her shoulders. “I need to be alone, because it hurts too much when people leave me. You were right, back then. It’s a curse to sit by and watch people I love pass away, so I just can’t anymore.”

“But I won’t leave.” Ben sits up straighter. “You know I won’t.”

“You say that, but–” The right words struggle to come out, momentarily overcome by the emotions she’s struggling to keep in check. It feels weird, spilling her guts out to him in the back of his limo, but also strangelyright, like it’s some sort of ritual purge she has to endure every century or so. “You don’t actually want me,” she finishes lamely. “You just think you do.”

“Condescension isn’t a good look on you,” he responds gruffly. 

“Honestly, the only reason you’ve ever wanted to be with me is because I’m the only person who may never leave you, and you know it.” She twists her lips and shrugs. “If I were just a regular person, you wouldn’t be interested in me.” He frowns. “But you’re not a regular person.”

“So you admit it then!”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Finger by finger, he tugs the leather gloves off of his hands as he responds, “Your immortality is as much a part of you as your intelligence, your beauty, your soul. Why should I have to discount it as a reason why I’m interested in you?”

She has no response for him, so she resumes staring out the window. They’re heading back into town. She breathes a sigh of relief. 

“Rey.”

She refuses to look at him.

“I’m sorry for leaving you.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says into the foggy glass.

“That night fourteen years ago. When you...” He coughs. “When I found you in your dining room, I’ve thought about that night every day since then. I don’t know if it was a test or something like that, but I just wish...I wish I could have swallowed my pride and stayed with you when you needed the company. I was hurt, but you were just lashing out and I wasn’t strong enough to hear it. To stay.”

Murky regret settles deep in her bones. It’s not that she doesn’t believe the truth in what he said, but she’s starting to believe his truth as well and it complicates things. “Ben, I–”

“If you’re offering disingenuous platitudes, I don’t want to hear them.”

She bites her tongue, then admits, “I guess there’s been a lot left unresolved from that night. For example, I don’t recall thanking you for saving me from swinging until I expired out of boredom.” She chances a quick glance at his face, and her belly warms when she sees the hint of a smile on the corners of his lips. 

“You’re welcome.”

“And I accept your apology. For leaving.” Looking out the window, she recognizes the aging, leaf strewn streets of her neighbourhood. She turns back to Ben. “One day, you said?”

His face lights up. “I’ll be gone next year.”

She snorts. “That’s still the lamest joke ever.”

“But it’s only good once a year. I had to take my chance.” 

An illuminated menu lights up next to Ben’s seat once they stop in front of her townhouse. He selects a string of commands, then offers his bare hand to hers to help her out of the seat. Grasping it, she feels the world tilt a little, like it’s always done before when they’ve been together and she wonders, for the first time in a while, what they are and why they’ve been cursed with such an unfathomable gift.

Her hands are shaking as she punches in her house code. “So, you know where I live?”

“Maybe.”

“Pfft.” She lets out a sigh of relief when her door swings open. 

Walking in, she’s flooded with the scent of freesia, jasmine, and gardenia from the hydroponic system she’s set up in one of the large bay windows. The floors are original to the home, made of wide maple hardwood that creaks when it’s stepped on. Matching wooden floor to ceiling bookshelves line every wall, with every shelf stuffed full of real paper books of various age and condition. Every nook that isn’t occupied by books is full of trinkets from her travels, or the results of various artistic endeavours. 

All in all, it’s her_, _and it’s home_._

“This place is a fire hazard.” 

She whirls around, eyes blazing. “Why don’t you ever shut–?”

He’s laughing at her. Standing in her entryway, in his stupid black clothes and stupid big boots, ridiculous mask hanging from one of his hands, shoulders shaking with suppressed chuckles. “I’ve missed you, Rey,” he admits. “Staying away from you was torture.” 

She walks over and grabs his dumb mask from his hand, then awkwardly loops it on her antique wrought iron coat rack. “Thanks,” she says, for a lack of any better response, because she’s not quite sure if she missed him back. 

She leads him to her parlour, behind her kitchen-slash-laboratory. Despite the fact that they’re not friends exactly, the air feels fresher with him in the house, lifting the loneliness that’s settled like dust in the cracks and crevices of her home. Bryann never came over, preferring to sleep over at his apartment. It’s a probable warning sign that she files away for examination later, because right now Ben is folding himself next to her on her Queen Anne loveseat that she pulled out of a dumpster somewhere, and is looking at her with uncharacteristic softness in his eyes.

She could love him. The thought flies into her mind unexpectedly.

Her hands. She folds them on her lap, but it feels so formal. Draping one on the armrest is too dramatic, and it’s not like she can just hold them in midair and let them sweat on everything. Out of desperation, she grabs a cushion off the floor and rubs the fringe with trembling fingers. 

Ben smiles. “You don’t have to be nervous. I didn’t come here just to have sex with you.”

She coughs, training her eyes on a painting of an oceanscape located right above his head. “You didn’t come here just to have sex?”

“I mean, that’s not what I was implying when I suggested we stay together, for the night. I meant, well, just hanging out,” he ends, lamely.

“Hanging out?” She laughs. “I haven’t heard that term in a few years.”

“I mean it.”

“Well good, because we’re not going to. Have sex, that is.” The loveseat squeaks as she shifts uncomfortably. “It would be strange for me, since I guess Bryann and I already–”

He winces. “Oh, wow–”

“–not that it was particularly good.”

“Great.” He reaches over and gently prods her arm. “But if not for that–?”

She turns her head to the window, where creeping tendrils of sunlight have started to make their way across the horizon. The air is already starting to warm, coating her muscles in a languid laziness. With a shrug of surrender, she shuffles closer to him, until her body fits just in the crook of his arm, and mumbles, “I guess we’ll never know.”

* * *

_Time passes._

_She keeps track of him more after that day. They have breakfast and coffee, then once he’s out the door she runs to her info terminal and searches for everything that can be found in the news archives about Ben Solo. What she finds is troubling in its brevity: son of a senator, only known case of RCD, mysteriously disappeared in 2023. Nothing else, even though it’s obvious he’s amassed some wealth and influence since then._

_So she digs deeper. She searches for images of his intricate mask and finds whispers of a movement in politics, in economics, in religion. She reads about radical new theories, mixing communism, globalization, unification. _

_She reads the name Kylo Ren._

_It drives her crazy with curiosity. Her fingers itch to call out to Ben; he didn’t leave her with a number, but he assured her that he would be able to hear her whenever she called out, however disconcerting that may sound. He’s always watching. She chooses to remain silent, and wait._

_But she doesn’t idle. Cancer rates continue to skyrocket, along with her conviction that it’s somehow her responsibility to fix it. She’s not a trained epidemiologist or physician, only a woman with a plan, books, and all the time in the world. Days and nights she sits reading in her parlour as the dust grows thick around her, until the morning she decides it’s finally time to experiment on herself. Because what is cancer if not regenerative cells, just unchecked?_

_There’s something in her DNA that moderates the regeneration. If she could just isolate it, replicate it, and somehow transplant it into the thousands of people who are dying every day, maybe she could harness this out of control disease into something good. Something more like what she’s been given. Every new clip of cancer activity that mirrors the regeneration of her own cells convicts her further; she’s been given this time to fix the problem. To save humanity from the ever-increasing mutations they’re inflicting on their own bodies. _

_The world is warming. There’s an odour in the air now, of dust and something sticky that reminds her of cloying decay, so Rey bars her windows shut and pours herself into her work. By accident, she goes almost an entire week without eating or drinking and accidentally discovers that she doesn’t _need_ to do either. It makes sense but, like breathing and blinking, she wonders how many of her daily activities she does to convince herself that she’s still human. _

_The years go by. Even though she’s sequested herself inside her own experimental fortress, she diligently keeps track of the news. There’s seemingly new unions every day, countries banding together with their limited resources and ballooning fear, craving the quiet panic of impending social upheaval. The lessons of history play out again and again like Fortune’s wheel spinning endlessly before her eyes, governments rising and falling like the thinning leaves in Earth’s dying forests._

_And then Kylo Ren makes his move._

**2184**

She takes a sip of her drink and sloshes it around her mouth so it covers every square millimetre of her tongue before she swallows it. The tingling burn and touch of oily richness settles in her belly, eliciting the very best of her oldest memories. 

“Amazing, isn’t it?” The customer a table over smiles at Rey’s obvious pleasure. “The beans are grown in a microbiome farm outside of Denver and roasted here in the shop. I’ve been coming here every morning since it opened.”

“It’s wonderful.” Rey takes a long sniff of the steam wafting out of her mug. “And serving it in these cups is so–”

She struggles for the right words to say, reticent to out herself as a quasi-cryptid who only leaves her house once every decade. 

“–so dope, right?” The other person gestures to a display next to the till, where there’s a list of period appropriate slang for patrons to use. 

“Dope. Right.” Rey gives them a small smile.

A crunchy, distinctive rift filters through the mounted speakers on the wall. The green aproned baristas behind the counter cheer and start doing a choreographed dance number, to the delight of the customers in line.

“Kurt Cobain is probably spinning in his grave right now,” she comments to no one in particular.

The person next to her frowns. “Who?”

“Nevermind.”

She pays for her coffee with cash she found in a shoebox under her geology books. That’s the reason she came to this particular cafe; they take cash, and it’s the only currency she has since she’s been reluctant to get implanted with a BioChip. That and she feels more at home, cushioned by retro brick and mortar, serenaded with grunge and the whirr of a coffee grinder.

The harsh sunlight makes her squint as she steps out of the cafe and onto the busy city street. Tall, windowed condos over quaint shops frame the Mag-Road, which is filled with driverless busses and the odd manned car. People seem happy enough, masked and goggled, chatting seemingly to themselves through the tiny vocal transceivers embedded in their BioChips. Some stare curiously at Rey, at her unmasked face and curiously bright eyes, but most go about their business, smiling and laughing as if they haven’t a care in the world. 

There’s a darker underbelly to this prosperity. Watchdog groups estimate that twenty-five to thirty percent of citizens subsidize their living by selling biomatter on the black market. There’s a thriving economy built on plasma and healthy leukocytes of the poor as the rich attain a semblance of immortality by flushing out their bodies as often as once a week.

Not true immortality though. That’s a market still wholly occupied by her and Ben, as far as they are both aware. Pollutants and hormones in the water have given rise to more noticable human mutations, but the most extreme one she’s heard of so far has been a boy in the former United Kingdom with a two metre prehensile tail. No one else seems to have developed any sort of naturally extended lifespan, if anything these new mutations have cursed their owners with lives that are blissfully short and observed.

She doesn’t often venture out of the house, but she figured today, of all days, it would be ideal to make an appearance at the United Earth Government headquarters, on the eve of their historic treaty signing. She waves off a bus that offers to pick her up, as her destination is up ahead, or at least the gate to her destination is.The headquarters themselves are contained behind a thick, ten metre wall that abruptly terminates the busy street. As a sign of opulence as well as extra security, there are two flesh and blood guards in booths on either side of the gate. 

Though it looks like open air, Rey is certain there’s at least a hundred layers of force field over top of the compound, affording the look of clear skies with the security needed for the ersatz leader of the known world. She’s heard of several protests planned for tonight as representatives from every remaining independent country gather together and sign a treaty that will act as the constitution of the United Earth Empire. Some herald it as the beginning of the end, but Rey knows the truth: the end began a long time ago.

She walks up to the kinder looking of the two guards and presents herself with the confidence earned by almost two hundred years of life. “Hello. My name is Rey.”

The guard, a stone faced individual with streaks of white in their indigo hair, stares up at her, unamused. “How may I help you?”

It’s not a question, only a thinly veiled command to leave immediately. She stands her ground, and continues. “I would like to speak to Kylo Ren, please.”

The guard tilts their head. “Oh. Really.”

“Yes.” She adds a small smile. “Please.”

“Please.” 

They stare at her some more, eyes focusing and unfocusing as they check something on their retinal implant. 

“I don’t have an appointment, but I’m sure he’ll see me,” she presses. 

“You’re sure, hey?” The guard is still reading something else, most likely unrelated to their conversation as they let out a little snort of laughter. 

This is the reason she never leaves her townhouse. She thought texting while driving was bad, but now everyone is chipped in seemingly all of their body parts, and unable to hold a conversation without zoning out somewhere to watch porn or chat with someone half a world away. 

“He must have some sort of list or something. Approved visitors, or the like.”

The guard lets out a sigh. Their eyes focus into a glare at her. “Who do you think you’re talking about here? A celebrity? This is the leader of our entire planet, a person with the weight of the world on their shoulders, and you’re asking to what? Visit? Have a talk?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but can you just…?” She tilts her head and tries to look as sweet as possible, widening her bright hazel eyes just enough to hold their attention.

“Fine.” Their gaze goes glassy again, and they frown, like many people do when they communicate mentally over the chip. “His assistant is checking for Rey…?_”_

“Just Rey. With an ‘E’.”

“With an ‘E’,” they grumble to themselves. Seconds tick by, and then the furrows on their forehead grow deeper. “I–” They pause to purse their lips, eyes locking onto her without distraction. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re welcome to enter. The Supreme Leader has set aside a spot for you at tonight’s gala.”

Out of no discernable seam, a small window appears in the guard’s station. “Please insert your hand so I can update your entry credentials.”

Rey rubs at her wrists. “Oh, I can’t, I’m not–I’m not chipped.”

The guard’s eyes go so wide, they look ready to pop clean out. “Not chipped? At all?”

She frowns. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. We still have the choice, and I chose not to. My parents were–were hippies.”

“Hippies?”

“Old fashioned.” She waves it off. “Is it going to be a problem?”

“Yes...no...I–” They frown again. “It’s been made apparent that you may enter, unaccompanied, to the mid chamber. You will be monitored, so voice your questions if you have any along the way. One you are in the mid chamber, you will wait, and someone will come to escort you.”

“Thank you!” 

She smiles. The guard’s face goes stoney again, except for a glint of incredulity in their stare as they input a long string of numbers into several panels. 

The gate cleaves open, revealing a carefully manicured green space filled with the scent of flowers and the sound of birdsong. It’s all fake, of course; the songbird population was decimated almost fifty years ago, but it’s still a nice touch. It reminds her a bit of her garden at home, her old home with Finn and the empty second bedroom. 

She passes through the garden into a glass roofed atrium, which is flanked on either side by airy looking office spaces, no doubt home to several hundred legislative peons who are busy drafting bylaws or something else equally dull yet necessary. Ahead of her is a fountain, a model of the Earth carved from marble with jets of perfumed water shooting out of the top. It looks strangely apocalyptic, benefitting the occasion.

“Please wait here for your escort,” announces a high, metallic voice from hidden speakers. 

Rey sits down on a bench in front of the fountain, and stares up at the ceiling. It’s bright and airy, but polarized enough that all of the harsh solar glare is cut out. It’s beautiful, in an artificial way, just like the birds and the retro nineties coffee shop she went to earlier. Nostalgia reigns supreme in a world on the cusp of killing its own past, she supposes, so it’s not a surprise that these tiny microcosms keep popping up to preserve snippets of the past. 

“Rey.”

She jumps to her feet and whirls around to face–someone, someone tall and black caped, wearing a mask that’s larger and more ornate than the one she’s seen before. “Be–”

“Such a pleasure to have you here,” he interrupts. “Do you find this space pleasing?”

“Yes, it’s very beautiful.”

“Excellent.” His leg twitches, as if he’s thinking about coming closer. “You are looking well.”

“Thank you.” She smooths down the wrinkles on her well worn linen tunic. “You’re looking–ah, well, as well.”

He cocks his head to the side. “Thank you.”

“I realize that you’re quite busy at the moment, but I was wondering if you had some time. To talk.” It’s ludicrous, she knows it’s insane to ask him for time on the cusp of such a monumental day, but he’s here and she’s here and there’s no advisors or minders in sight, so she can’t help but feel that her gesture, her coming here to him means something to him.

“To talk.”

“About things. The state of the world.” 

“I see.”

She wants to see his face so much, to look into his big brown eyes and his little expressions that give everything away. Masked, he’s just like everyone else in this new world; covered, guarded, artificial. “I understand if that’s not possible, but–”

“It’s possible.” The vocoder in his mask crackles. “I always have time. For you.”

“Oh.” 

“I can’t meet right away, I’m currently hosting a liaison with the former East Asian Prime Minister.”

“Of course.” 

“But that should be over shortly. I’ll get ThreePio to escort you to your chambers, and I’ll meet you there.”

She frowns. “My what?” 

Ben whirls around and stalks back to where he came, his black cape billowing out behind him. In his place, a hologram of a slim, elderly male butler flickers to life. “Hello, I am ThreePio,” he announces in a slightly tinny voice. “Please follow me.”

He takes her down a glass walled hallway, then through several warm wooden doors, each more intricate than the last. There’s no locks on the doors, instead they open automatically at her approach, indicating some sort of internal authorization. Despite the fact that this is supposedly the headquarters for the entire planetary government, there’s a conspicuous lack of people in the buildings.

“Um, ThreePio?” she asks, hesitantly. “Where is everyone?”

The hologram stops, then turns his slightly shimmering head towards her. “I beg your pardon?”

“The other people,” she clarifies. “That work for the government?”

“Ah, yes. They are all in the government wing of the compound.”

“The government wing?” 

“Correct.”

She takes in the floor to ceiling windows, the deep wooden doors, and creeping vines, and frowns. “Then where are we now?”

ThreePio gives her a soft smile. “These are the Supreme Leader’s private quarters. And this–” He gestures to the next door, “–is the entrance to your chambers, miss.”

Rey stops dead in her tracks, three metres from the door. “No.”

“I’m sorry?” His head tilts, and expression shifts to slight concern. “I do not understand.”

“You said this is the door to my chambers, but I don’t have chambers. I’ve never been here before.”

“I see.” His concern lasts for another second, then flashes back to a smile. “Well, enjoy!”

Unlike the others, this door doesn’t open automatically. Rey waits, getting more confused by the second, until ThreePio gestures to the handle. “Please, if you will.”

It’s strangely warm under her hand. Even though it looks like plain metal, she’s sure that there’s some sort of biometric reader embedded in the handle, because the moment she touches it, the door unlocks with a ‘click’and swings open.

Behind it lies the most ornate, beautiful library she’s ever seen. Floor to ceiling bookshelves, several storeys high, with stairs and ladders and walkways connecting them to each other. The shelves are filled with every book imaginable; she sees concordances, The Lord of the Rings series, _Grey’s Anatomy,_ and a thick folio of Shakespeare’s histories, all nestled snug in leather dust jackets. The room itself is bathed in bright light, speckled with every colour of the rainbow, thanks to an intricate stained glass window mounted at the apex of the ceiling.

She has to tear her eyes from the shelves to take in the rest of the space. In the corner of the room there’s a parlour set made up of dark antique furniture that looks invitingly plush. Across from it is an arboretum with hanging vines and every colour of orchid imaginable, which frames another open door. Dazed, she pokes her head in and sees a bedroom set, achingly beautiful, with a soft linen bedspread and puffy down pillows.

“Do you like it?”

She whirls around. Ben, _Kylo Ren_, is back, standing tall with a leather gloved hand on the edge of the sofa. 

“It’s beautiful.” The bed beckons her, promising the best sleep she’s ever had in her life, but she stands firm, untempted. “What did ThreePio mean though, calling these my chambers?”

“They are yours,” he replies, simply.

She stares back at him, at black eyes and shining chrome. It’s like talking to an old fashioned microwave or a coffee maker, not the supposed leader of the entire planet.

Or Ben. The only person on Earth who understands what she’s gone through, the loss that she’s felt, and the loneliness. She misses the familiarity of his face, misses the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles and his crooked grin. Even as these elaborate rooms make her belly twist into apprehensive knots, she’s calmed by the evidence that he’s been thinking of her, that someone’s been thinking of her. Maybe he’s been right all along, that they’ll only find comfort in this life by surrendering to the inevitability of each other, or maybe she’s been alone for so long that she’s desperate. Either way, she craves him like she’s never craved a person before. 

He shifts on the spot._ “_What are you thinking?” 

“Take off your mask.”

He pauses, just standing there for a moment, then reaches up and releases the hidden latches on the side of his mask. It disengages from his head with a pneumatic hiss, then he pulls it off, revealing the same mole-freckled, ageless face of which she’s grown fond. 

“Better?” His voice is softer, hesitant. 

She smiles. “Much better. I missed you, Ben.”

His face falls, cracks of mournfulness breaking through his pale skin. “I missed you too. So much.”

It takes him only four paces to cross the room and then he’s right in front of her, sharing her space and breathing in her air. They’re familiar enough that the closeness isn’t uncomfortable, still he waits for her to close the distance instead of pulling her right into an embrace. 

So she does. With shaking hands, she grabs handfuls of his black cloak and pulls him tight up against her. Instantly, his arms wrap around her, clutching her close as he buries his nose into her hair. It’s shocking, being so close to someone after years, no, decades of being alone. She’s shaking, he’s shaking, and she feels like the world is spinning around them as she memorizes the planes of his chest with trembling fingers. 

“I–” She laughs. “I haven’t spoken this much in twenty years, so I’m sorry if I don’t make a lot of sense.”

“No, it’s fine, I love hearing you. You’re so familiar.” He pulls back from her to examine her face, tracing her unweathered brow with his leather gloved finger. “I feel like I’ve gone back in time.”

Together they sit down on the overstuffed loveseat. She clutches his free hand in hers, as if her touch could make him stay for a while, just Ben, not that overprocessed, masked Kylo Ren. It’s strange to be here with him when the world has twisted so much, but it feels so right_._

Sensing her discomfort, he brings his hands to his mouth and tugs the gloves off with his teeth, finger by finger. When his bare hands touch hers, there’s a spark of electricity that makes her jump in her seat. 

“How long has it been?” he breathes.

“Just small touches, here and there. People are so guarded these days.” She rolls her eyes. “Plus I don’t get out much.” Her face softens. “How about you?”

He shakes his head. “No one. Not since that night. I have to be careful about who sees me, so it’s better this way.”

“All wrapped up. Preserved, like a mummy.”

“Like Osiris.” The corners of his lips quirk up into a smile. “Except I managed to escape in one piece, thanks to you.”

Poe and Finn’s determined faces bubble up in her memory, and a wave of sorrow crashes over her. “I can’t remember his voice anymore,” she blurts out.

Ben squeezes her hand. “Yeah?”

“I found some old pictures on a phone I had lying around, but no videos. I never even thought–” Her eyes drift off to the vast, multi-storey walls of books surrounding them. “Wouldn’t it have been amazing, if we could never forget? If that was part of who we are?”

“Sometimes it’s good to forget.”

She hums in agreement, then buries her back into the cushions, her hand not leaving his. It’s scary how much he knows her, really knows her, through surveillance or whatever means he has at his disposal. It used to make her mad, back when she figured her privacy was the last thing she was entitled to, but now she just feels surrounded, supported, like the cushions cradling her body. In the years since she’s seen him, she’s never been bothered, despite staying in her old dusty house the entire time. He’s given her space through all of it, space to do her research and learn, without feeling like she’s been under a microscope.

“Did you see yourself here?” she wonders. “Back before, did you imagine that you would end up here?”

He sighs. “I don’t know if ‘end up’ is the correct term, but no, I didn’t. Not until a few decades back. That was when I understood the solution.”

“To?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, his thumb strokes patterns against the back of her hand, tracing her veins and tendons like they’re paths to understanding. “Did you imagine yourself here?”

“Sort of.” She watches his thumb trace her cephalic vein, from which she’s drawn thousands of litres of blood over the years. “I can’t let it go, this idea that we’re like this for some greater purpose.”

He chews his lower lip between his teeth, then nods. “Go on.”

“I’ve been doing some research the past couple of years, on cancer cells. They exhibit a lot of the same behaviours as our cells, well mine at least. Just unchecked. I’m certain, with some time and resources, I’ll be able to find a way to force our cellular behaviour onto the mutated cells of normal humans.”

“Have you considered the other things exacerbating the situation?” he wonders. 

Her face lights up with excitement. “You mean the environmental variables? Of course! I spent five years writing up a report on the inflammatory properties of microplastics. I mean, it’s not a new concept, but I believe now we may have the resources to cleanse the ocean, and people may be more receptive to being educated.”

“That’s fascinating. Tell me more.”

So she does. She tells him about her research into hormones, and heavy metals, and solar energy. Her hands wave in front of her as she charts chemical diagrams with her fingertips. Ben’s eyes light up, and he offers the occasional word of encouragement as she goes on and on about the work that’s consumed her life over the past eighty or so years.

“–and did you know that we don’t even have to eat? Or sleep? Once, when I was attempting to metastasize my own liver cells, I went without breathing for a solid two hours!”

“How did you keep track of it?” He’s reclined against a pile of cushions on his side of the loveseat, mouth twisted into a lazy grin. “If you were too busy to breathe, how did you keep time?”

“Oh, it wasn’t exactly, just a guess…” Her voice trails off when she notices the shadows being cast against the bookcases. “What time is it now?”

He shrugs.

“But don’t you have a gala? Tonight?” She jumps up from the sofa. “That’s what the guard said, right?”

“There is a gala tonight, yes.”

His nonchalance is off putting. “And when does it start?”

“Just over two hours ago.”

Her face blanches. “Shouldn’t you be–?”

“Where? There?” He shrugs. “I suppose. But I’d rather be here with you.”

“But aren’t you–” She holds her hands up and does an old fashioned air quotes gesture. “ –the ‘Supreme Leader’?”

A chuckle escapes her throat before she can stop it. Scowling, he straightens up against his cushions and clenches his fists. “Are you mockingme?”

She can’t help the wave of warmth that blooms in her chest. Seeing him like this, in his regal clothes with his young handsome face smiling at her feels like a piece of herself clicking into place, like a long lost puzzle piece finally being retrieved. Finally, it feels right, thisfeels right. His patience and attentiveness as she rambled on, his excitement at her proposals, this is what everything has led up to, this is how they’re going to make things good again. This is how the world will be fixed.

Relaxing, she sags back into the loveseat and reaches for his hand. “I’ve missed you, Ben.”

He raises an eyebrow, pulling his bare fingers back until they’re clasped against his leg. “You said that before, but have you really? Or have you just been lonely? I can’t imagine you keep much company these days.”

A cold bolt of annoyance shoots through her. “No, I’ve missed you. As a person. As someone who knows me, really knows me.”

“A couple of chats and one night almost a hundred years ago don’t make a relationship, Rey.” 

“Don’t give me that.” She slouches down onto the loveseat and wrinkles her nose. “Don’t make me beg for this.”

Instantly, he’s more alert, squaring his shoulders as he leans closer to her. “Beg for what, exactly?”

It’s annoying, he’s being annoying. It’s been hundreds of years and he was the one who suggested it first, so why does she have to be the one to say it. “You know,” she huffs.

“I don’t though.” His eyes are wide and earnest, despite his position, his years and experience. “I can hope, but I would never assume–”

“Just please, Ben.” 

“Please what_, _Rey?”

“Please…” She sighs. “I’m so lonely.”

Her hand is warm. She looks down and sees his larger one clasping hers in one grip. “Just say it, Rey,” he whispers, pleading with his eyes, so round and dark and trembling. “Please.”

Thighs shaking, she raises herself just high enough to lean over and gaze at him head on. “Please love me, Ben,” she breathes against his mouth, then captures his lips in a kiss.

It’s exquisite, hundred of years of waiting and anticipation meeting in a rush of soft lips, deep groans, the taste of cool mint and want hot on her tongue. Ben groans under her, his entire body going lax as his fingers grip her waist, biting into the soft skin with the desperation of a man unhinged. 

“Rey, “ he moans into her mouth, then pulls away enough to stare at her face, to examine her flushed cheeks, wide eyes, pink lips swollen with desire. “I can’t believe...I only ever–I mean, it’s all been for you. Everything.”

Her eyes trail to his dark robes, earnest face, to the book lined walls and clear glass ceiling.

“You made this all for me?” she wonders, breathless. 

“Yes, you. Only you.” His large hand envelops her cheek as his thumb strokes her bottom lip, softly. “But I only ever dreamed that one day you would be here. With me.”

“Did you dream of it? Often?” she teases. 

“More often than I care to admit. I–” His tongue flicks out, wetting his lips, and he admits, “I like you. A lot. Not just because of your immortality. Even if you weren’t immortal, your intelligence, your tenacity is so breathtaking to watch. You’re like a supernova.”

“Ben, it’s fine, I’m not hung up on that any more, honest–”

“No, it’s not fine,” he insists with the will of a toddler trying to get his way. “I choose you. I’ve always chosen you, and I always will choose you. Immortal or not.”

“But you never would have met me if you weren’t immortal.” She stares down at her free hand currently twisted in the soft black cloth of his robes. “So it’s a moot point, really.”

“I would have found you. Over a thousand lifetimes or more, I would have searched for you. Rey, you are everythingto me.”

He laces his fingers through the fine hair at the nape of her neck and gently tugs her forward, pressing soft kisses to her cheeks, her nose, then her mouth, breathing words of adoration into her skin as she holds on to him. This has been the one thing missing from her life, the one point of pride and control she couldn’t give up. A companion, a partner through it all, one who will never abandon her. It’s too much to comprehend, too much to let herself want.

Insistent, needy hands grab at his robes, pushing them off his shoulders. Her fingers, trembling with want, undo the little snaps and buttons holding him together until his chest is finally bare under her. He’s a vision, planes of smooth skin and hard muscle dotted with moles but no other blemish in sight. He’s like a marble statue, preserved through the centuries only to be ravished by her hands. 

He does the same to her as well, divesting her of her sensible clothing so that she’s bare before him, clad only in a modest cotton bra and mismatched panties. Before she would have apologized and made excuses for her appearance, but she’s older now, wiser to the truth that any partner who cared about the state of her underwear wasn’t worth being a partner at all.

“You said you had no chip,” he murmurs into her neck as his hands play with the clasp of her bra. “And I know you can’t catch anything, but are you–?”

A twinge of pain courses through her veins, the reopening of a wound long scarred over. “I can’t,” she whispers against the shell of his ear. “I can’t. My body–”

His hands still. “Right.” 

He doesn’t say anything else on the subject, he just faces her and presses his lips to hers in the most breathtakingly tender kiss she’s ever had, as he puts to death every dream he’s had of mischievous, brilliantly intelligent children with black hair and hazel eyes. She clings to him in return as a wave of sorrow washes over her, edged with a hint of relief. She can feel again, strong and passionately, after so many years of loneliness. 

Wrapping his fingers around her thighs, he hoists her off of the loveseat and takes her to the bedroom cradled in the muscled crook of his arms. She feels safe and free, finally able to unclench every tensed muscle in her body as he gently lays her down on the soft mattress. Reverently, he unclasps her bra and peels it off of her chest, taking in a gasping breath when her small, pert breasts are revealed to his hungry gaze.

“You’re perfect,” he hisses. 

She grins. “Thank you.”

“There was a part of me that–that thought that we would never get here,” he pants, spreading hot, open mouthed kisses against her shoulder, chest, belly. “Even with all the time in the world, countless centuries, we would never truly meet.”

“And here we are.” She’s gone breathless, the sensation of someone, of him, trailing his lips against the waistband of her panties is almost too much for her to bear. 

He hums as he hooks his fingers into her underwear and tugs them off. “Here we are. May I?”

“You may.”

He looks like the Devil incarnate, dressed in black pants and grinning like he sold the world for a song. Instead of diving in like she expected him to, he takes his time, surveying her exposed pussy with featherlight touches. “I’ve waited four lifetimes for this,” he offers as an explanation. “I’m not about to lose myself in the first ten seconds.”

She bites back a whimper as his finger grazes her clit, just for a moment. “I’m surprised you’re interested at all, what with HoloSex and SynthSkin.”

“Don’t insult me,” he murmurs, lowering his mouth to her trembling folds. “And don’t insult yourself.”

The first touch of his tongue is so soft yet firm and delicate but laced with intention. She sings under him, writhing as he laps her up like the most delicious dessert he’s ever tasted, gripping her waist in his large hands so firmly that his thumbs bump up against her ribcage. This is heaven, this is what she’s been missing for two hundred years, the touch and adoration of this man who has ripped apart the world and still kneels at her feet.

“Ben, Ben, Ben benbenben,” she pants, gripping the blankets with trembling, clammy fingers. It feels like the first time, impossibly good, like all her previous lifetimes were just a prologue to the passion and sex and longing waiting right around the corner. Pleasure bubbles up her body, swinging higher and higher and higher until she feels herself flying through the air, fingers twisting into the soft waves of his hair as she comes against his lips, the murmur of his satisfaction vibrating through her sensitive pussy.

“Wow,” he breathes against her. “I–”

“You?” Rey gasps, winded. 

He laughs then, surprisingly high and airy for a man so swathed in death. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to do that.”

“Oh, I think I have some idea,” she snips back, making sure to smile sweetly enough that he takes it as a joke. 

His eyes go wide. “Have you wanted this too?”

It’s a complicated question. She’d be lying if she said she’s never thought about it, dreamt of him coming to visit during her loneliest times with his skilled fingers and sinful mouth, but it honestly hasn’t been the same for her. She’s had love and lost it, she’s had relationships and been betrayed and, while she’s sure Ben hasn’t spent the last two hundred years wallowing in his virginity, she knows deep down that he hasn’t made the same connections she has.

For him, it’s always been her. And that thought still chills her to the bone.

“Of course,” she breathes. “I’ve wanted it for a while.”

And shehas, she reasons as she lays back on the pillows, Ben crawling on top of her like a panther stalking his prey. Sheloveshim, just not like how she loved Finn, or any of the others after him, and just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s not as valid. She loves him like how she loves her research, her plants, her books. She loves him as a part of herself, a link to her past and a harbinger of her future.

She hoists herself up to meet his kiss, and it’s heartbreaking how she can feel him trembling on top of her. Quickly, she skims his chest, reaching between them to unfasten his pants and tug them down along with his underwear. “Please, please, please,” he murmurs against her lips as she grasps the length of him and swirls it around her swollen entrance to gather moisture then, canting her hips, she sheathes him into her with one thrust.

His entire body tenses and he lets out a soft breath of relief. “Oh my god,” he groans, his fingers digging into the blankets next to her head. “Oh my god, I can’t believe it, you–you feel so perfect.”

“You’re not too bad yourself,” she responds, and it’s true. The feeling of him inside her, stretching her and molding her to himself is breathtaking, like the crash of a wave on a white sand beach. She clings to him, holding onto his back and ass with grasping hands as he drives into her with achingly slow thrusts, savouring the sensation of his weight pressing into her and his scent in her lungs.

Soon, too soon, he lets out a long moan into her shoulder and she feels the telltale wet warmth of his release inside her. It’s nice, but not as meaningful as the way he curls up beside her, extending his arm across her pillow so she can snuggle into the warmth of his chest.

“You’re incredible,” he breathes, nudging her hair with his nose.

“You’re okay,” she taunts back, a small smile curling on her lips.

Instantly, he straightens up, maneuvering himself so he can face her. “Was I...not good?”

She laughs, full bodied and hearty. “You were wonderful, Ben. It’s just–after two hundred years, I was expecting it to...last longer?”

“Last longer?” His face twists into a frown and, for a second, she worries that she’s gone too far but then his lips land on hers and he’s pushing her into the mattress, hands buried in her hair and she remembers ‘_ah yes. This is what it feels like to be happy.’_

* * *

She wakes up alone. 

The sheets around her body are the most luxurious thing she’s ever felt. She wants to melt into them and sleep in until tomorrow, but she’s alone in the bed, like she is every morning. Groaning, she buries her head into the pillow; she doesn’t know what she expected really. Ben doesn’t seem like the type of person who sleeps in every morning, even if she did fall asleep with her nose buried in the crook of his neck.

Her eyes crack open to light streaming in from the skylights above, polarized to let in the sunshine without the glare. It illuminates the spread before her, lavish silver platters of every breakfast food available, fresh pastries, steaming tea, even fruits and berries that she thought were impossible to get. She’s about to pop a juicy raspberry into her mouth when she sees the biggest surprise of the morning,

Nestled in a crystal dish of sugar encrusted flowers lies a small leather box, hinged on the back. Rey’s eyes go wide, darting from the box to the berries, then back again as her heart pounds uncomfortably in her chest.

“Rey.”

Ben’s at the door, dressed in his usual black, mask held in his gloved hands. “Did you sleep well?”

“Did I, ah...yes?” She tries to pry her gaze away from the box but ultimately fails. “Did you?”

He smiles. “Best sleep of my life, I think.”

“Oh good.” Nervous, she stuffs the raspberry into her mouth, but she’s so preoccupied she can barely taste it. “Have you eaten?”

“I don’t normally have breakfast.”

“Oh, okay.”

His left eye twitches, and he coughs. “But I figured I would make an exception today, before my meeting this morning, because there’s, uh, something I would like to ask you.”

“Is there?” She pats the bed next to her, pleased to feel that it’s still a bit warm from his body. 

Awkwardly, he lumbers into the room and sits down next to her, conspicuously out of place in his heavy black clothing. “First, I want you to know that last night was the best night of my life, and I swear that if this meeting wasn’t so important, I’d still be right next to you. Only with less clothes,” he adds, flushing slightly.

She smiles. “Must be some meeting.”

“Yes, quite.”

He averts his eyes, just a small flick, but it’s enough to make her curious. “What’s the meeting about?” she wonders, casually.

He stiffens next to her. “Oh, nothing really.”

She cocks her head to the side. “Is it important, or is it nothing?”

“It’s nothing you would find interesting.” He cringes immediately after the words leave his mouth, like he knows he’s just messed up colossally but can’t seem to stop himself. 

“Ben.” Her voice goes soft, and deathly quiet. “What’s this meeting about?”

For a moment his face breaks, sadness flowing down the emotive lines around his eyes and mouth until he regains his composure and his expression hardens. “There’s been insurgents sighted in the former Oceanic colony once known as Australia. This meeting is to–to plan the process of dealing with them.”

“Dealing with them. You don’t mean–”

“I do mean that, yes. We’re planning how to kill them, Rey.” His gloved hands twist into fists. “This is part of my position, part of my responsibility as Supreme Leader. Insurgents mustbe dealt with.”

“But where does justice come into it?” she wonders, tightening the blankets around her bare torso. “What happened to having a fair trial? Why not give them jail time or remedial therapy?”

He laughs, a sharp bark that’s too harsh for the softness of the room. “You’re kidding yourself if you think any of those things actually work.”

“I’m kidding myself to think that fairness and human decency deserve a chance?” she huffs incredulously. 

Ben tries to backtrack, desperately reaching a gloved hand out to tug on her tensed wrist. “No, no, I don’t mean it like that. It’s admirable, really, that you want to see the good in people.”

Rey frowns and shoves his hand away. “Admirable? Or naive?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say–”

“Be honest with me, Ben, is it admirable or naive?”

He winces. “Rey, don’t, please–”

“Answer the question.”

“It’s fucking naive, Rey, and you know it!”

A bead of sweat rolls down his forehead, which is trembling with the effort of holding back his anger. Rey takes in a deep breath, suddenly very aware that she’s still fully naked beneath the blankets while he’s sitting next to her completely clothed.

“I-I want you to leave, Ben.”

“Leave?” he huffs, incredulous. “But this is my home.”

“Just for a moment, so I can–” The words catch in her throat, too humiliating for her to voice aloud. She feels like a fool, like an idiot who could believe that a man who styles himself the Supreme Leader of the planet could limit himself to scientific philanthropy in the face of conflict, and now she’s sitting naked in a bed he bought for her, his dried semen cracked and crusty between her thighs.

“Please, Rey.” He reaches his hand out again, stroking her calf with leather against linen. “Please, I didn’t mean to insult you, I think you’re the most wonderful person who has ever lived, please you must know that.”

She pulls her leg back against her body. “I feel like a whore sitting here naked while you casually discuss killing people over breakfast. This isn’t what I came here for.”

He physically recoils, like she’s slapped him across the face. “You’re not a whore. I love you, I want you to be my wife.”

In unison, they look at the ring box, still nestled amongst the now-wilting flowers. 

“Oh, and what kind of partnership would that be?” Rey whirls her head around to face him. “What do you envision, you gallivanting around the world murdering anyone who dares oppose you while I’m tottering away in a lab unawares? What kind of marriage is that?”

“That’s not what I expect from you, and you know it. Don’t put words in my mouth!”

“Would you ever have told me, Ben? Or should I call you Kylo Ren?”

“Yes!” he blurts out. “Yes, you should! Ben Solo is dead! He died the day you and your friends broke me out of the hospital, and you should stop looking for him here!”

“Fine!” With a mighty tug, she pulls the blankets out from under him and stands, wrapping herself tightly in a cocoon of warmth. “Please, please leave now.”

“No.” He stands too, shoulders slumped. “No, because if I leave...then you’ll leave. For good.”

“Yes, I will. But you can’t stay here forever.” She juts out her chin, challenging him. “Don’t you have a very important meeting you need to attend?”

“Rey_._” He bites his lip. “Rey, you need to believe me when I say that last night truly was the best night of my life. I’ve never–never felt this was about another person, never in the last two hundred years. There’s never been anyone else for me, only you. Please...please don’t go.”

She stays silent, stone faced.

“Please, I’m sorry, I’ll try to make it right. Phase out the targeted attacks. Do less of them, at least. Maybe implement some reeducation programs, try benevolent imprisonment instead, just please don’t leave. Don’t leave me.”

“I have to go.” Rey reaches over and plucks the ring box from it’s crystal dish, then crosses over to the other side of the bed and presses it into his gloved hands. “B-Kylo. Thank you for last night. It was...very special for me too.” 

“Rey, no.” He scrambles, tries to shove the box back into her grasp, and only ends up dropping it at her feet. “Rey, no, please.”

She leaves the bedroom, head held high, blanket sliding on the floor like a train. “Don’t try and stop me,” she calls over her shoulder as she hastily retrieves her discarded pants and tunic. She tugs them on, underwear abandoned in the other room because she can’t bear to go back, to see his broken face and hear his pleading words.

She was a fool. An idiot, to think he would ever give up his power to focus on saving people. For him, the only way to fix humanity is to dominate it, and she’s not sure he’ll ever see it another way.

She’s halfway down the hall outside ‘her’ quarters when she hears his broken cry and the sickening crack of shattering glass.

* * *

_Time passes._

_The loneliness envelops her like a well-worn blanket: stifling but familiar, and smelling slightly of must and mothballs. To distract her brain, she buries herself back into her work, but her broken heart still remains, cracked and bruised in so many places she doesn’t know where to start. _

_She stops going outside. Stops reading the news, stops watching the HoloNet. She can’t bear to see that mask again, not when she held his face in her hands and ran her fingers through his hair as he whispered promises he never meant to keep. The world may be fooled, but she knows as sure as she’s alive that Kylo Ren is the proverbial creature to Ben Solo’s Dr. Frankenstein, the artifice sent out into the world that only exposes the monster in its creator. _

_The gifts are ridiculous too. Instead of keeping his distance like he did in the years past, he decides to court her with the most extravagant gifts possible, gifts that could only come from the Supreme Leader of Planet Earth. Former crown jewels, priceless telescopes and equipment, rare books all show up on her doorstep like mail order packages. If she were a prouder woman she would send them back, but there’s something amusing about working on a titration while wearing the Koh-i-noor diamond on a string around her neck, something that tickles the scavenger inside of her._

_The last of his gifts is by far the most luxurious, and the most thoughtful too. It’s an island, off the east coast of the former North American continent, previously a bit chilly but in recent years settled to a moderate, not quite tropical climate. Not one to leave out any details, the island comes with something else; an official decree by the Supreme Leader that, while the landmass is still under the protection of the United Earth Empire, the island itself serves as its own independent nation, and will henceforth._

_It’s touching, and it came without strings attached so, always the practical one, Rey moves there immediately. Access to the HoloNet is spotty at best, but she likes it that way, left alone with her books, research and the flourishing natural plant life on the island. Wars and treaties break against the shoreline, but all she lives for is the coo of birdsong and the comfort of a warm cup of tea in the evening, satisfaction in her own solitude._

_Until one day, that solitude is broken._

**2403**

It’s evening when he arrives on her domain. In contrast with the world surrounding it, her island is even more lush and green than it was when he gifted it to her over two hundred years ago. The rocky peaks are worn with age and weather, but still stand tall and proud amongst the grassy outcroppings and glistening tide pools. There’s even animal life here, tiny squat birds with fat jowls and luminous eyes that stare at him like he’s some sort of trespasser on sacred ground.

Technically, he is a trespasser. More accurately, he is the recently resigned Supreme Leader of Earth, setting foot on the planet’s last independently governed nation. Part of him was expecting a wall or traps around the perimeter, but the only things that note his arrival are the aforementioned birds, mooning at him from their mountainous perches. 

Does she know he’s arrived? Does the ground shift when she feels he’s near, like it does for him? Does she know how much he’s missed her, how every day of his reign without her by his side left an ache in his heart that he’s dying to fill?

That wasn’t the only reason. To be honest, ruling wasn’t everything he expected it to be. People were people, stubborn, senseless, resistant to change, even if his mandates were ultimately for humanity’s good. He doesn’t have Rey’s love of humanity or her joyful charisma and, towards the end, he discovered that being Supreme Leader was just a massive slog. 

So now he’s here, at her island. According to a carved wooden sign at the bottom of the mountain path, she calls the place Ahch-to, equal parts solemn and mysterious enough to fit the setting. Boots heavy on his feet, he climbs the pathway, admiring the view as he goes higher and higher until the modest speedboat he arrived in is just a blip on the shoreline.

Her house is at the apex of the mountain, tall and proud like it was hewn out of the rocks themselves. It looks like it’s been here for centuries, and will continue to stand for centuries to come and it makes Ben proud to see that Rey’s living in a place that screams of her. The sleek ebony door is cracked open, most likely to allow the salt air to blow in, so he lets himself into the house, announcing himself with a quiet, “Hello?”

The entryway reminds him of her old townhouse, full of floor to ceiling bookshelves packed tightly with books. Here, there’s also paper strewn about, along with several old computer terminals and a portable biomedical lab that’s seen better days. Everything is thick with dust, like it’s been abandoned, and for a minute he assumes that she’s left the island. 

But then he sees her. She’s seated on the floor in the middle of a pile of papers, all covered in different colours of scrawl. Her glossy nut brown hair is swirled around her like a makeshift nest, and instantly he’s taken back to his childhood, to the fairytale of Rapunzel trapped in her stone tower, swathed in the mass of her own curls. 

She turns at the sound of his footsteps on the stone floor. “B–” Her face hardens. “Kylo Ren.”

Her voice is stiff from disuse, and it makes Ben’s heart break to think of her all alone on this island with absolutely no one to listen to her brilliance, no one with whom to chat or discuss ideas. 

“No, no, not Kylo Ren,” he corrects her, gently. “It’s just Ben now.”

Then her face crumbles, hundreds of years of solitude and loneliness echoed in a single look. “No,” she insists, tears streaming down her cheeks as she twists a lock of her hair in her hands. “No, you can’t just come here and say that, and expect to make everything right. You can’t do that, Ben.”

“I know I can’t.” Finger by finger, he tugs off his leather gloves, well worn from the journey. “I know I can’t regain your trust so easily, and I can’t make up for hurting you and all the ways I’ve hurt others.”

“You killed people.”

He hangs his head, even as his fingers work to undo the buttons of his black quilted tunic. “Yes. Yes, I did. I killed people because I thought it was the easiest way to fix things. I tried to scare people into being better, and it worked for a bit.”

She scowls. “But not any more, I presume?”

“No...no.” He shrugs off his tunic to reveal the bare planes of his chest. “I’m done with all of that. It may work for another thousand years, but it’s not worth it.”

“Not worth what?”

“Losing you.” He unzips his pants now, pushing them down and kicking them off with his boots and socks. “I don’t claim to care about other humans like you do, Rey, but I swear that I care for you with the adoration of ten billion souls. Nothing I achieved, no peace or improvement, was worth losing you.”

She cocks her head to the side, taking her time to appraise his unclothed state. “So what is this, then?” she wonders. “Some last ditch attempt to appeal to my carnal desires?”

“Not at all. This is me showing you that Kylo Ren is dead.” He peels off his underclothes and stands before her, naked as the day he was born. It’s cold, colder than it was outside, and all of the hair on his body stands on end as he presents himself, bare and vulnerable, to her scrutiny. 

“Do you promise?” She stares at him straight in the eyes. “Do you promise to stay with me, no matter what?”

“Of course I do, Rey, it the only thing I’ve ever wanted.”

She nods, assessing his honestly by scraping her gaze along his quivering lips and the slope of his shoulders. “Good.” Gasping, she stands, letting her hair fall to her sides. “Good,” she repeats. “Because I need you, Ben. I don’t know what to do. I can’t do it. I can’t...fix them.”

“What?”

“I can’t fix them, Ben.” She looks up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “It’s been hundreds of years, and I still can’t keep them from dying. The humans, I can’t...I can’t save them.”

He crosses the room in three paces and falls to the ground, enveloping her in a warm, strong hug as she breaks down, crying fat tears that bead on the skin of his shoulder before trailing down his chest and back. His heart breaks for her; beautiful, intelligent, radiant Rey, who only ever wanted to stop the tragedy of death and loss. 

“I’m here now; I’ll help you,” he vows, but she shakes her head with frustration.

“No, _no_, you don’t get it. I’ve read everything, I’ve done everything, I’ve tried everything. I had all the time in the world and still–” Her voice cracks. “Failure.”

“I swear to you,” he breathes into her skin. “I swear that I will never leave you. I swear that I will make everyday worth living. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“I’ve wasted so much time. So many years of research, decades, centuries.” She lets out a pained sob that rattles her slim frame. “I’ve spliced genes until I’ve gone cross eyed, I’ve worked in clinics, churches, charities. I’ve lied, I’ve stolen...and for what? I could write a hundred Ph.D. dissertations on how cancer is inevitable, how decay is inevitable, how death is the one singular thing that unifies all humans.”

“So what does that make us?” He lets go of her just enough to pull back and admire her tear stained face. “Are we not humans?”

She smiles back at him through her sorrow, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t know any more,” she admits. “For years I assumed that this was attainable for everyone if I worked hard enough, but now I’m not sure.” 

With shaking fingers, she cradles one of his large hands in hers, and brings it up to her lips for a kiss. “Whatever we are, we’re not alone. Not anymore. Not when we have each other.”

* * *

_Time passes...or does it?_

_Squirrelled away on her island, Ben and Rey rediscover the lost art of companionship. They spend hours, days, weeks mapping the planes of each others’ bodies, tracing and caressing and kissing and fucking until they know each other more than two people have known each other before. _

_Empires rise and fall around them. Generations pass as they grow together, learn together, love together. Quarantined on her island, they rediscover life, Adam and Eve for a new age, until one day they look up to the sky at the rust coloured sun, and realize humanity’s time is running short._

_The ocean has gone dark and scummy by the time they fix his boat enough to make the trip back to the mainland. And once they arrive, what they find is startling._

_Or more like what they _don’t_ find._

**????**

It’s dark. 

Rey clutches Ben’s hand in hers, chest heaving with nervous breaths. “Where are they?” she whispers. “The other people...there’s no more people.”

Frowning, he persists on, down the crumbled durasteel walkways and cracking roads. Even the buildings around them have fallen, nature reclaiming them by way of weeds, moss, and the ever beating sunshine. “I think it’s the air,” he rumbles. “I’ll run some tests when we get home, but I think the air composition has changed.”

“The plant life is still mostly the same, though,” she says, examining what appears to be a dandelion under her foot. “You’d think they would have evolved by now.”

“You say ‘by now’ like you know how long it’s been,” he chuckles. “When did you stop keeping track?”

She stops walking and stares up at him like he’s the centre of her universe. “The day you came,” she says, smiling. “I didn’t have to wait after that.”

They come across a server bank that’s still mostly intact, though decrepit enough that Ben’s able to break through the front door with his elbow and some force. A lone terminal still flashes with life, likely attached to a still functioning solar cell, so he splices a few wires and manages to hack on to the network, while Rey examines the remnants of life abandoned at the facility.

“The majority of the employees were hyperdactyl,” she says, running her fingers along the keyboards at each dead terminal. “The configuration of the keys is odd, but I remember them coming up with it right before I moved to Ahch-to. I assume it was one of the mutations that they started breeding for.”

“God, sounds like something Dr. Snoke would have come up with,” Ben mumbles under his breath as he scrolls through what appears to be duty logs. “Hey, I think I found something. Come look at this.”

Frowning, Rey peeks around his shoulder at a list of news articles projected on the terminal’s cracked HoloScreen. She takes in a gulp of the likely poisonous air when she reads the headlines. “They used some sort of weapon to trigger solar flares. They needed more power…”

“That explains it,” Ben sighs. “They’ve accelerated our solar evolution by billions of years. I know we lost track of things, but I know we weren’t on the island for a billion years. Not even a million.”

“Though that time you were trying to teach me fencing…” Rey snorts. “It felt like forever.” 

“Hey!”

Her smile fades when she focuses back on the screen. “So they must have poisoned the air too. Did any of them manage to escape?”

He runs a simple search for the United Earth Space Expeditions, or any other space faring organization he can think of, and comes up with nothing. “None on record. Most likely too busy fighting over resources.”

“But maybe they did?” Rey, ever hopeful, pokes her arm out around his and scrolls through the news articles with a flip of her finger, until she gets to the end. “Wow, this is morbid,” she mutters, reading through the last article that acted as the editor’s dying wish to the planet. 

“Well, what would you say if you knew you were about to die?”

She looks back at him and gives him a sad smile. “Ironic that you’re asking me this question.”

“There’s not really anyone else to ask.”

“Fair. I don’t know, but I do think that ‘We Did This to Ourselves’ is a bit of a downer for a final headline, even if it is...was true.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t attempt domes again.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “Oh like that worked so well last time.”

“We tried!” He brushes his lips against the top of her head in a brief kiss, relishing the musky soft scent of her hair. “I suppose it would have only been a last ditch attempt. Would have maybe bought them another century, if that, before the increased climate change would incinerate all the remaining organic matter left on the planet.”

“I guess that is a majour harbinger of doom,” she says, shrugging at the sky. “No going back from a dying sun.”

Ben sighs too, shutting down the terminal with a flick of his finger. Together, they walk back outside, surveying the crumbles of civilization with sorrow filled eyes. Occasionally, they stumble across the odd fragment of humanity, a tooth or a femur, but for the most part the humans seemed to have met their doom in their homes, in the arms of their loved ones. 

Ben squeezes her arm in his, suddenly sentimental. “I’ve never taken you on a date before,” he muses, eyes wistful.

“A date?” Rey wrinkles her nose. “What is this, 2021? Are you going to take me to the theatre to see the latest Marvel movie where we buy overpriced popcorn and makeout in the back row?”

“No, something way better.” He takes her hand in his and pulls her along with him. “Follow me.”

There’s no vehicles, but the time and effort of travelling on foot and boat is nothing to them, not any more. He takes her to monuments in the former North America, to the canyons and mountains and endless wilted fields of grain. They sample wild berries and greens and mushrooms that have made their way up to the formerly permafrosted North Pole and taste the water wept from thousand year old glaciers. The Great Wall is just a pile of rubble, but they travel to that too, along with the Eiffel Tower’s curled and eroded beams. 

It could be a thousand years, or an afternoon for all they care. Every landmark blends into another until they find themselves on a white sand beach, wrapped in linen sheets atop an old, wrought iron bed that has miraculously survived the apocalypse and then some. The rusty red sun hangs over them, ever closer, and the tides crash around them, and for the first time in what seems like forever, Rey is content.

“This isn’t how I pictured it all ending,” she murmurs, “but I’m okay with it.”

Ben hums and nuzzles his nose into her hair. “How did you picture it? Us facing off across a deep chasm, armed with laser swords?”

“M’dunno. But yeah, something antagonistic or epic. This just seems mundane. Nice, but mundane for the end of the world.”

“Right.”

She notices his cheek twitching, and she frowns. “You don’t think this is the end, do you?”

His wry grin curls across his face. “For someone who survived strangulation and being impaled through the chest, you have a very negative outlook on our current situation. Who’s to say that being absorbed by a red giant will be what ends us? Maybe we’ll spend the rest of eternity bouncing off of asteroids and hitching rides on stray comets.”

Her shoulders slump. “Is it wrong that I was kind of hoping for death? How morbid of me.”

“Not at all. I get it.”

“It’s just...I’m so tired, Ben. I never thought it would happen, what with everything to see and learn and explore, but we’ve done it all and now I want to rest.”

“Then rest.” He loops his arm around her shoulder and squeezes. “Just because you can move doesn’t mean you need to, and just because you don’t need to sleep doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

It’s weird to doze at the end of the world, but also pleasant, like she’s being carried across the waves curled up in the arms of her partner. She dreams too, of past memories, experiences, regrets. She feels the pain of her first injury, tastes the fresh Swiss cheese, sees Finn’s smile, and hears the rumble of Ben’s chest as he hums and sings to her as she sleeps. 

“Humans theorized that, once the sun runs out of hydrogen, it’ll implode into itself and become a white dwarf.” His fingers trace patterns on the skin of her thigh, old words written by long dead poets. “The core will shrink up, and the rest of its atmosphere will be flung away and become a planetary nebula, where new stars will start to form, and new planets thereafter.”

“What are you saying, Ben?” Her ageless face is luminous as she peeks up at him in the scarlet hazed light. “That we’ll survive all of this, and wake up one day on a new Earth? Insteadof spending eternity flying through space?”

“It’s a theory.” He shrugs. 

She snuggles closer to him, burrowing deeper into the pile of pillows and blankets until her face is pressed against his chest. “Still sounds exhausting to me.”

So they wait. Time is meaningless to the immortal, only tracked by the evolving phases of the sun that looms like a starving maw on the doorstep of their tiny planet. Occasionally, she looks up at Ben’s face and counts the collection of moles that sprinkle across his skin like constellations, or pushes back his coarse black hair with a gentle sweep of her fingers. Soon, she starts to feel small imperfections on his face, small burns and blisters where his regeneration can’t keep up with the scalding heat of the growing sun. Their hair shrivels around their heads and falls crisp at their feet, and Ben squeezes her hand in his because _this is the end, the end is nigh._

Red engulfs the sky, and all Rey feels is burning, burning, dulled by a lifetime of pain and regrowth. Her ears are full of the roar of a dying planet when she turns to Ben and sees his crumbling lips mouth the only three words that matter:

_I love you._

Her vision goes white.

The mind which is immortal makes itself

Requital for its good or evil thoughts,

Is its own origin of ill and end,

And its own place and time; its innate sense,

When stripp’d of this mortality, derives

No colour from the fleeting things without,

But is absorb’d in sufferance or in joy,

Born from the knowledge of its own desert.

-MANFRED Act III Scene IV-


End file.
